Chance an asian for harvard :)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p><b>Strengths</b>: Essay, Math Competitions, Recs (esp. from Math teacher, Physics teacher = on the 'meh' side), IB predicted, IGCSE scores
<b>Weaknesses</b>: SAT Scores are slightly weak, too "Asian"</p>

<p><b>GENERAL</b></p>

<p>Graduation date: June 2011 (coll. class of 2015)
Demographics: Male, American-born Chinese
High School: Private
Residence: Hong Kong
Will apply for financial aid: No</p>

<p><b>ACADEMICS</b></p>

<p>Class Rank:
From teacher's recs = At least top 5%
Our school doesn't rank our class though.</p>

<p>GPA:
None</p>

<p><b>IGCSEs</b>: 5A* 4A 1B (with relatively hard courses incl. Additional Math and Chinese 1st Language)</p>

<p>English Language: A*
English Literature: A*
Science double-award: A<em>/A</em>
Math: A*
Additional Math: A
History: A
Music: A
Spanish: A
Chinese (1st Language): B</p>

<p><b>Testing/Scores</b>:</p>

<p>-<b>SAT I</b>:
05/2010 (CR-M-W) 690-800-740 (2230 total)
Retake in October/November</p>

<p>-<b>SAT Subject Tests</b>:
Math 2 800
Physics 760 </p>

<p><b>IB Courses (Predicted)</b>
English HL (7)
Chinese B HL (7)
Math HL (7)
Physics HL (7)
Chemistry SL (7)
History SL (6)
(yes I take 4 HLs, should shine a bit)
Core (3)
Overall predicted score = 44 out of a possible of 45 (99.8% percentile worldwide)</p>

<p><b>EXTRACURRICULARS</b>
in no order whatsoever
<b>Top 6 "Principal" ECs<b>
1. Head of school math team
- Purple Comet International Competition 2010 – ranked 25th out of 1620 teams worldwide, Honorable Mention
- South East Asian Math Competition 2009 - team ranked 2nd out of 70 teams and individually ranked 8th in 210 competitors.
2. Hong Kong Mathematics Olympiad (Best in School - ranked 16/978, Gold medal)
3. American Scholastic Math Competition – Highest Scoring Student in 2009 and 2010
4. 2009/10 AMC 12 – Distinction (qualified for AIME), Best in School (Score: 108 points) and American Invitational Mathematics Exam – Best in School (Score: 8 points)
5. Member of Ninjahood, a basketball team in the Hong Kong RSA Basketball League. Our team won the championship in June 2010.
6. 2008 Piano – Licentiate (Level 6 NQF) Diploma Trinity College London
2010 Nov Piano – Fellowship (Level 7 NQF) Dipoma Trinity College London Pending</b></b></p><b><b>

<p><b>Other ECs, will put on attached resume.</b></p>

<p>incl. 2009 qualified for UKMT British Maths Olympiad – achieved a Distinction (1 year below age range)</p>

<p><b>-Leadership positions:</b>
Student Council Class Representative 8-12
Shadow Prefect 11
Leader of Math Team (incl. South East Asian Math Comp. ranked 2nd/60+ teams and Purple Comet ranked 25/1600 teams)
Student tutor 11-12
Leader of Planning team in 2010 South East Asian Math Competition (Hong Kong)</p>

<p><b>-Volunteering & Community Service:</b>
2009-10 Volunteered to tutor and mentor a Grade 11 student on iGCSE Mathematics, Science and English once a week.
2008 Volunteered to be the Counselor of School "The Great Race" challenge (1 week)
2009 Volunteered to teach underprivileged primary school children in Dongguan (1 week)
2010 Volunteered to help plan and host the 2010 Southeast Asia Mathematics Competition events.
2010 Undergo a 2-week summer internship program at a solicitor’s office (pending)</p>

<p><b>-Honors and Awards:</b>
Maths:
2006/7/8 School Commendation
2009 School Book Prize (for Outstanding Achievement)</p>

<p>2006, 08, 09 School Music Competition – 1st Prize (did not participate in 07)</p>

<p><b>MISC (other things on college app.)</b></p>

<p>Intended major: Civil Engineering
Intended minor: Economics?</p>

<p>Other countries: Born in San Francisco, CA and stayed for a year, lived in Shanghai as a child for several years, lived in Hong Kong for 10 years.</p>

<p>Languages I speak (S) read (R) write (W) besides English
Chinese (Mandarin) SRW incl. dialects: Cantonese and Shanghainese
Spanish SRW</p>
</b></b>

2

<p>reach with a 2010</p>

3

<p>@intemister. That’s the year she took the SAT, she scored 2230 on it. Still that’s a little low for Harvard espescially for an ORM. High Reach.</p>

4

<p>You have a decent chance at Harvard. You have the stats, now it boils down to a stellar essay! Btw, if you want to do engineering why not try MIT down the block? MIT is definitely better for engineering.</p>

<hr>

<p>I’ll be blunt, URM/ORM are way exaggerated. Nosike just thinks that just because he is black he automatically has a great chance and that asians because they are asian will have a miserable chance. This is crap. He also loves getting chanced to get his daily ego boost and more sinisterly deflates others to inflate his ego. So don’t mind him.</p>

5

<p>haha cool thanks econgrad.</p>

6

<p>^ Check the past acceptances for Harvard. CC members are usually much better than the average applicant and from last year, only people with 2300+ got in if I remember correctly. That’s 2350-2400 for Asian applicants as well, and I think they were all domestic too.</p>

<p>Very, very high reach.</p>

<p>As a tip for other universities you apply to, remove some of the ECs - some of them don’t add quality, just quantity, and thus don’t make for a good impression.</p>

7

<p>^YehBoys, completely wrong.
There are multiple threads where community leaders/senior members compiled lists with related information. You DO NOT need above a 2300 to get into Harvard. It helps, but generally, if it’s above 2100, you have a fighting chance given the rest of the profile is good. And there’s absolutely no way Asians on average get 2350-2400 on their SATs for Harvard admits. I don’t want to sound crude, but you really are misinformed.</p>

<p>To the OP: you have a decent shot. The problem is that your profile fits in perfectly with every other Asian applicant. In the end, among the top competitors, it really becomes a crap shoot. As a CCer once said, “You can replace the 2000 admits [at Harvard] with the next 2000 in line, and there’d be no difference in quality.”</p>

8

<p>Harvards 25th-75th percentile ranges from 2150 to 2370. Out of that, 40% of accepted students have hooks such as athletes/URMs/legacies. This means, for an unhooked applicant, your scores have to be higher, lets say, 2250, to be decently competitive. Now, if you are international, the competition is much tougher… so lets just say 2300 for an unhooked international applicant. Now, add ORM into the mix and we are around 2350. I’m not saying you can’t get in with lower, but I’m saying that your chances are quite low. None of your ECs, jump out.</p>

<p>Also, look at this: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/651345-race-college-admissions-faq-discussion-3-a-50.html#post1062681634[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/651345-race-college-admissions-faq-discussion-3-a-50.html#post1062681634&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Look at post 749. You can see CC members who were accepted to Stanford. With Stanford having a slightly lower 25th -75th percentile than Harvard, you can see what my point is.</p>

<p>Furthermore, I would say your ECs are below average when compared to the average Harvard. It is also blatant that you are exaggerating and if I can know that, then the admissions officers will know too. For example, I was still in high school when SEAMC came to Singapore, and my teacher helped out with organizing it (the math teacher of another school organized it) and I know that, on the whole, the teachers were organizing it and the students helped out only (they never got in contact with the hotel where the students were staying, decided budgets or any of the other logistics). I wouldn’t have to know that prior knowledge to know that a student would never be in charge of organizing a competition as big as SEAMC.</p>

9

<p>hmm… bitter? i led my team to second place in SEAMC, and I have a signed CAS forms for being part of the organizing team in SEAMC. In fact I was in charge of the first day incl. reception of students and other members of my committee organized the other 3 days. Please don’t comment if you don’t know exactly what you are talking about.</p>

<p>I’m sorry but no offense the fact that you think I’m exaggerating shows you don’t know anything. My statements are short and not ornamented. Any statements of placements are certificated, and there is evidence of everything I have written.</p>

10

<p>You currently live in Hong Kong?</p>

11

<p>yess :slight_smile: you too?</p>

12

<p>Yes, the percentile range is between 2150 and 2350. If I remember correctly, “hook” percentage is actually closer to 50%, which includes URMs/athletes/musicians and the like.<br>
I am wrong, however. After reading your retort and rereading the profile, I realized that the OP was international, not domestic. So as to the chance, I think you are relatively close, YehBoys. My apologies once again. See, this is why I call myself one of the less-qualified and less-informed chancers.</p>

13

<p>I hate to be this blunt but with a 690 CR you probably won’t get in. Work hard on getting that reading score up.</p>

14

<p>Thank you. I think you came here specifically looking for an answer that you wanted to hear. </p>

<p>Well anyway, even if that is true, you still need that SAT score higher by a massive amount. Just remember, for international students, schools verify whether what you say is true. Even if it is partly true, exaggeration doesn’t go down well. Also, they compare you to people in your school and city for international students, so you want to have the higher SAT score and better ECs than all other students applying to Harvard from your school, and even your city if possible.</p>

15

<p>Wow…you have really good stats…but according to a dartmouth AND Yale admissions officer…stereotypical Asians are frowned upon and usually rejected because there are so many piano/violin virtuosos who excel in math+science and play ping pong and badminton. Sorry if tht seems harsh, but it’s far more difficult for an Asian to get into an ivy league school…especially if they haven’t done anything to break that “nerdy”. ( heh don’t worry, I’m a nerd :stuck_out_tongue: 2) Asian mould. Good luck!</p>

16

<p>You have great potential, so I recommend you focus on some other schools (MIT, Caltech, Berkeley, CMU, etc.). You have a good shot at those.</p>

<p>Sorry, but the chances for Harvard is very very low (see above for why)</p>

17

<p>wow can i be you lol</p>

<p>my resume and scores and gpa are CRAP. they’re downright humiliating lol</p>

18

<p>I think I know you, South Island right? But yeah, like what people have said, there are just simply too many applicants with piano/math strength. Way too many</p>