chance me for caltech and stanford please

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>hi everyone, and thanks for wading into this thread. I'm a 17 year old Greek boy living in a household of ph.d's in nuclear and mechanical engineering (dad/mom respectively) so the emphasis has been on math/science from the start. here is my info. </p>

<p>Test scores:
ACT - 34 (34 English, 35 math, 33 reading, 32 science, 8 essay)
SAT II Math Level 2 - 800
SAT II Physics - 790
SAT II Biology M - 730</p>

<p>I'm a bit miffed at the 35 in math and 32 in science, because I could get 36 and 34 on them consistently in practice. also, the 8 in the essay is meh. honestly how am i supposed to write something good in 20 minutes? oh well. decent scores overall. i am pretty proud of my math level 2 800. </p>

<p>Courseload: I'm taking the IB program so no AP scores, though I wish in hindsight that I had taken some AP tests anyways just to get the scores. oh well, hindsight is always 20/20</p>

<p>IB Math HL
IB English A1 HL
IB Biology HL
IB History HL
IB Physics SL
IB French B2 SL</p>

<p>I'd have taken Physics HL but my school doesn't offer it =(</p>

<p>GPA/rank: 94.04/100 unweighted. my school doesn't rank but unofficially I'm in the top 5% (I asked around. it took a while). nobody will see that though. </p>

<p>EC's:
Professional Greek folk dancer ( we dance for really important people like the ambassador of Greece) freshman-senior year
varsity cross country / outdoor track captain freshman-senior year
varsity soccer freshman-senior year
jazz band 1st clarinet freshman-junior year
symphonic band 1st clarinet / concert master freshman-sophomore year</p>

<p>the big one is the Greek dancing, since I'm national-class at that. we are considered to be the best group in Texas and are regularly compared by experience dancers to the groups of Greece, but that's all unofficial. still, it's a huge deal. the cross country/track is not as good as it seems, since I go to a small school. my times are average (2:06.60 800m is my best)</p>

<p>letters of rec: from my math and physics teachers. I'm the strongest kid in both subjects and I regularly see the teachers outside class (not about school-related stuff, just to talk about the subjects with them). I also have a letter of rec from a stanford alumnus who is currently very highly regarded in the science community at the moment. she's a good friend and we also talk about news in the science world a lot. </p>

<p>essays: i'd rather not post them but I think they're good. I write about Greek dancing and how it's been a part of my life for 10 years now, how I picked it up on my own at first, etc. they're not heart-rending because I haven't had any heart-rending experiences in my life yet (knock on wood) that I can write about, but they're unique and they show my personality more than anything else. </p>

<p>work experience: tutoring 3 hours/week freshman year. I really should have gotten more jobs. </p>

<p>that's all, folks. if you want, post a link here and I'll chance back. thanks for reading!</p>

2

<p>shameless 1 hour bump, lets gooo</p>

3

<p>Caltech is a bunch of “geeks”. There is nothing wrong with that, but you will not fit in if you aren’t a “geek”</p>

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<p>No math/science related ECs will hurt your chances at Caltech; your scores in math/science would preferably be 36 and 800 and GPA higher to make up for that. Your chances at Stanford are a little better, but Stanford admissions is really unpredictable, as are the rest of the Ivies and MIT; Caltech is easier to read.</p>

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<p>I feel sufficiently geeky to fit in at caltech. I spend most of my free non-EC time with either teachers or former teachers talking about science. </p>

<p>as for EC’s, yeah… I don’t really know what happened there. I did spend my past two summers at science related internships (mostly programming machines) and I went to a 3 week program at Stanford’s EPGY program doing 7 hours of physics per day. not sure how to include those in my applications though. </p>

<p>also, for caltech, I think they may accept me despite being a little bit on the weak side. I’ve been talking with the coaches over there and they seem quite interested over there. had I run for the caltech team last year, I’d have been their fastest 400m runner and 2nd fastest 800m runner. I realize they don’t care too much about sports, but if I can qualify academically this will hopefully put me over other students.</p>

6

<p>things go bump in the night</p>