<p>I believe my case is very unique and difficult for myself to accurately judge my odds due to special circumstances. I went to an extremely rigorous private school for my freshman, sophomore, and junior years of high school. Due to professional reasons, however, my family moved across the country this summer and I am now attending a much less intense public school.</p>
<p>My previous school sent me a profile for their class of 2012 to share with colleges. Some of the included information: 100% of graduates (about 450 total) go to 4-year universities, the mean ACT composite of students was 28.1 (far above the national average of ~21), and 85% of AP exams taken by students scored 3 or above. The school also limits the number of APs a student can take to three per year and only allows juniors and seniors to take APs. The regular classes are far superior to those of most public schools. I took just one AP class (Calc AB) and earned a 5 on the exam. The school does not weight GPAs or rank the class, but I had a 3.500 cumulative from my three years there and a 3.833 only counting my sophomore and junior years.</p>
<p>At my new school, due to these circumstances, my 3.5 GPA ranks me 84/318 (top 26.4%), which does not cut it for the schools I want to get into. I am taking four AP classes this year (MacroEcon, US Gov, Stats, Chemistry) and one regular class (English). I earned straight As for the fall quarter (4.0 UW, 4.75 W) and expect to keep these grades up for the rest of the year.</p>
<p>I scored a 29 on the ACT (32 E, 33 M, 29 S, 23 R), which was clearly watered down by a poor reading score. I am applying as an engineering major to my list of colleges, so I figure that my math and science scores are probably the most important? This puts me within the middle 50% range for most of the schools I am applying to, and slightly under for a couple.</p>
<p>I think the area of my application that will stand out the most to adcoms is my list of extracurriculars. I created and operated three sports-related websites from eighth grade to eleventh grade. I had about 30 volunteer employees (writers) working for me and eventually sold all three for $x,xxx. Through this experience I learned how to code websites and run a business, and I wrote of this in detail in my essays.</p>
<p>In addition to this, I was an all-conference basketball player last year and a 3-year varsity letterman, wrote for a major sports website (not mine), went on a two-week service trip to Nicaragua, was the VP of a school club, coded a website for a professional company, and did quite a few other more common activities/services.</p>
<p>I believe my essays are top notch, as I felt very strongly about some subjects and wrote about them and received positive feedback from my cousin (a UPenn grad) and English teacher. I worked on each for well over a week, going through a ton of drafts to make sure they were clear and mistake-free.</p>
<p>I also am sure that my recommendations will be great. I received them from my AP calc teacher, who liked me a lot, and my Spanish teacher, who taught me in 9th and 11th grades, took me on my Nicaragua trip, and absolutely loves me. He called me before he started to work on my recommendation and told me it would be "the best rec ever".</p>
<p>Here are the schools I will be applying to (all out-of-state):</p>
<p>*Stanford (EA)
*Duke
*USC
*UCLA
*UC Berkeley</p>
<p>I have already been accepted to one school, so I do have a backup that I am at least somewhat content with, though I would ideally like to go to one of the above five. I really hope that my schooling situation and relatively low standardized testing scores (for Stanford and Duke at least) don't bring me down.</p>
<p>Would love to hear your thoughts... Thanks!</p>