<p>First things first, I go to the top public school in the top school district in California. It's ranked 86th in the nation by Newsweek. (Campolindo if you want to look it up.) They don't tell students their rank, and I have no idea what mine is. That being said, I have a low(ish) GPA for someone considering top national universities: 3.5 UW 3.86 W, 4.0 W w/o Freshman year. However, the average GPA / SAT scores for people accepted into UC Berkeley from my school last year were 3.81 W (as opposed to 4.1 state-wide) and 1303 respectively, if that gives you an idea of how much students from my school are weighted by the fact they went here. I took Alg 2/Trig/Pre-calc Honors Freshman Year; AP Euro and AP Calc AB Sophomore year; and AP U.S., AP Calc BC, AP Physics, AP EnvirSci, and French 4 Honors Junior year. I'm taking six more AP's Senior year. </p>
<p>As for standardized testing, I got a 2310 SAT I (is it worth retaking?), 800 Math II, 780 Physics, 780 U.S. History, and 5's on all of my AP exams (see above.)</p>
<p>EC's aplenty have I: 4 years Lettered Men's Varsity Volleyball, Club since 2003 (Junior Olympics twice, last year we placed 15th in North America.) Orchestra and priate violin lessons since 4th grade, including some leadership positions and awards. I also picked up piano the summer before junior year. UC Berkeley Academic Talent Development Program (Summer 2003-2007.) Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (Summer 2008.) Acalanes Union High School District Gifted and Talented Education (Spring 2010.) Last Summer I took 2 College Science classes at UC Berkeley which can be used for credits if I attend.
This Summer I'm living in San Francisco and volunteering at UCSF Cardiology Department, Clinical and Translational Science Institute, AIDS Research Center, and SFGH (San Francisco General Hospital,) 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. (I have some good connections at UCSF.)</p>
<p>Any chance at MIT?</p>
<p>hey!
I research at UCSF! lol</p>
<p>Buy anyways, your GPA is low for MIT. MIT is on a completely different level than UCB but i see your point. I also don’t see what your passion is or what you’re interested in. Do you research at UCSF or are you just a volunteer? I am also seeing just a bunch of ‘gifted and talented’ programs listed as EC’s. Are these prestigious? I’m not too familiar with these sort of programs :P</p>
<p>Your SAT scores are great, in range for MIT. You have great AP scores as well but keep in mind that AP scores do not amount to much and affect little to nothing in admission decisions.</p>
<p>All in all, you have a chance but it’s hard to tell. Write a great essay and get great recommendations.</p>
<p>chance back?
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/970755-chance-ivies-please.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/970755-chance-ivies-please.html</a></p>
<p>Oh yeah, something I forgot to mention, but is somewhat important to colleges, is that I have an upward trend in my transcript. Freshman was my worst, followed by sophomore (although I did get my first and only C+ during the first semester,) followed by Junior year, even though I have taken progressively more challenging classes.</p>
<p>GPA is still low though. there are plenty of people out there with 4.0 flats throughout all of high school. were there any extenuating circumstances that caused your freshman/sophomore year grades to be low?</p>
<p>Should GATE be listed as an EC?</p>
<p>No. GATE is not an EC. Nor is it very selective (although in some regions it IS very selective, I mean that in general, it’s not very)</p>
<p>I was selected for GATE, but turned it down. The one I listed was a somewhat selective, out of school interdisciplinary work project. It’s run through the district, but didn’t really interact with school at all.</p>
<p>^ It just has a similar name</p>
<p>And as far as AP scores go. I was always told they mean nothing if you consistently score highly, but can be used as an indicator if you score low. If you got an A+++ in an AP class, and a 2 or 3 on the exam, that can sometimes mean that AP classes at your school are not quite up to standards.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this counts as “extenuating circumstances,” but I’ve done everything basically on my own since middle school. My parents divorced when I was like 3, my dad lives 3000 miles away, my mom works full time and went to law school at night until about a month ago. I actually went for weeks at a time where we never spoke, except when she came in to say goodnight after i put myself to bed. My older sister’s no help, and has a small alchohol problem. I’ve actually had to hold her down in the hospital bed overnight so she wouldn’t get up, because she had a BA% of .32 and didn’t know where she was. Just normal stuff lol.</p>
<p>I don’t really wanna whine about it in an essay, cause it could have been a lot worse. I’d rather focus on other stuff.</p>