Hey everyone, I am currently a senior in high school, and I was wondering what my chances for Stanford, Cal Tech, MIT, Georgia Tech, Brown, Princeton, Harvard, UCLA (engineering school), and UC Berkeley (engineering school) are. It would be appreciated if you could also include an estimated percentage of my chance of getting in
I am a middle class/upper middle class Asian female. I go to one of the top ten public high schools in California. Everyone is very competitive and aims for the top. My major is applied mathematics.
GPA: 4.0 unweighted, 4.4 weighted
Classes:
Freshmen (not allowed to take APs):
Alg 2 honors, English 9 honors, Biology (no honors offered), Health/Civics (required and no honors offered), PE (required), Engineering Design, Chinese 3 (taken outside of school but accredited and part of GPA)
Sophomore (only APs offered are AP Chinese and AP Music Theory):
PreCalc honors, English 10 honors, Chemistry honors, World History honors, PE (required), AP Music Theory
Junior:
AP Calc BC, English 11 honors (no AP English offered), AP Chemistry, Ap Physics 1, US history honors (could have taken APUSH but didn’t), AP Statistics
Senior:
Multivariable Calc/Linear Algebra (community college course through my high school), AP Literature and Composition, AP Biology, AP Physics C, Gov/Econ (required and no honors offered), AP Computer Science
Stats:
AP exams: I received a 5 on all the AP exams I took. In addition to the APs I took in school, I also self-studied:
Freshmen - AP Microeconomics, AP Macroeconomics, AP Psychology, AP Human Geography
Sophomore - AP Environmental Science, AP Chinese
SAT (took once in sophomore): 1580 (800 math, 780 English), writing: 7, 8, 7
ACT (took once in sophomore): 36
SAT Subject Tests:
Sophomore - Math 2 (800)
School Clubs:
Club A (name could reveal the school I go to): club that performs music at senior centers, autistic children center, library, etc.
Freshmen - member
Sophomore - Secretary
Junior - President
Senior - President
Math Club - member all four years
Cryptography Club - member all four years
Club B (art, music, community service)
- examples of what we do: teaching the members of the club calligraphy, making instruments, holding annual music benefit concert, making hospital patients cards
member all four years
Summer Camps:
MIT Women Technology Program (summer before senior)
Jobs:
TA at math tutoring place (junior and senior)
I started a piano teaching business with a website. I taught the summer before sophomore, junior, and senior year.
Community Service:
Club A performances (all four years), taught Chinese children English in Taiwan (summer before sophomore, junior, and senior), piano accompanist for young kid choirs
I started a piano trio with two other people in sophomore year. We go around our area and give small charity concerts.
Extracurriculars:
Choir - member since 2005 (I was 3), piano accompanist for the lower grades (since freshmen year)
Piano - started in first grade, awards below
Awards:
Piano:
Freshmen - selected performer at festival, honorable mention at regional competition, honorable mention at regional competition
Sophomore - MTAC State Panel Honors (about top 50 of state receive), selected performer at festival, second place at regional competition, first place at regional competition, first place at regional competition
Junior - selected performer at festival, first place regional competition, first place at regional competition, second place at regional competition, third place at regional competition, honorable mention at regional competition
Piano Trio:
Sophomore - third place at regional competition
Junior - second place at regional competition, third place at regional competition
Math:
AIME (American Invitational Math Examination) Qualifier (freshmen, sophomore, junior)
Community service:
Gold Presidential Award (freshmen, sophomore, junior)
Academic:
National Merit Finalist
National AP Scholar
Recommendation Letters:
Multivariable Calculus/Linear Algebra professor, AP Physics C teacher, and school counselor rec letters are probably just average.
Math tutor that I am TA for - I have been his student since fourth grade. In one of the past rec letters he wrote for me, he said that in his 24 years of teaching, I am among the top of his students. He said that I am not only intelligent, but also humble and strives to improve. He also thinks I am well behaved and does not act out of line.
Piano teacher - I have been her student since seventh grade. I am one of her top students. She sees me as extremely hardworking, determined, and dedicated. This is shown by how much I practice and how well I respond to her comments. She also knows that I started going to piano competitions in seventh grade (most “good” people started at around 8), and did not receive any awards until ninth grade. I was rejected for two straight years. She saw me continue to work hard and not give up.
Essays:
Common App: My common app has the main theme of thankfulness, which leads to two sub-themes of my desire to help those less fortunate, and how I always strive to be the best version of myself. It starts with an experience I had when meeting a disabled person of my age. I wrote about how it is so unfair that some people are less fortunate, and how I want to help them. I also talked about how I am so thankful for the life that I have, and how that makes me strive to be the best version of myself. I connected this to piano by describing the dark moments (losing for two years, comparing myself to the other competitors who were way better than me, etc.), and then writing about how I didn’t let it get to me because I just wanted to learn and improve. Then, I wrote about how I used the opportunities I had to hopefully inspire others and help them (starting a trio to give benefit concerts, teaching Chinese kids english, being a TA, teaching piano, making seniors and autistic kids smile from club A performances).
Supplementals: I think my supplementals were fairly strong. I tried to get these qualities across in my supplementals: thankful, humble, determined, passionate.
Thank you so much!
MODERATOR’S NOTE: flaxmilk and oatmilk are twins - that’s why their posts are so similar.