<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I go to an extremely competitive school that's one of the best public schools in the county, and under this pressure I've taken many difficult classes my sophomore and junior year, but subsequently gotten many B's. My schedule/grades for junior year (this course load was a horrible decision, I know):</p>
<p>AP French - A
AP English Language - B (an 89 and it kills me)
AP US History - B
AP Calculus BC - B
AP Biology - B
AP Physics - A</p>
<p>I have about a 4.1 overall and a 4.2 for just 10-11 grade weighted, so as you can see my weighted GPA is okay, but unweighted it is horrible (3.6).</p>
<p>I got a 2200 on my SAT.</p>
<p>Believe me, I know that is NOT an excuse. It was dumb to take so many hard classes and not do well in them. But I feel like I've still worked very hard (despite these B's, I was up until 3/4am almost every night this year, and about 2am every night sophomore year). It kills me to think I've worked this hard, and then not go to a prestigious school.</p>
<p>My extracurriculars include:
-Speech and Debate - I normally place in the top 3/4 out of 60-70 students, I qualified for the State Championships in California as a freshman, I was captain of Impromptu speaking my sophomore year.
-Synthetic biology club - I joined my sophomore year when this club was first started at my school, the objective is to create a project and present it at a competition at the end of the year, won an award that year (last year)
-Key Club (community service)
-Figure skating since I was young
-Volunteered at the public library for a year
-Been volunteering at a medical office for a year
-Going to start volunteering at a children's hospital this week until the end of next year
-Started playing piano 2 years ago and made 4 year's worth of progress</p>
<p>I've been told I am articulate/eloquent, I read a lot of books (both literary fiction and nonfiction), I watch a lot of academic lectures, study a lot of art/science on my own, and generally sound fairly well-read and knowledgable. So I think I could do well in an interview and write a good essay (I'll be having a LOT of help and have been told I am a good writer.)</p>
<p>Is there any hope that I could get into Cornell, ED or regular, or UC Berkeley (I'm from California), NYU, Carnegie Mellon ED or regular, UCLA, or even Columbia? Before this year Columbia was my dream school because I thought I would do well this year, but now I realize it's a high-to-reach. Is there even, say, a 5% chance I could get in? In other words, should I even try?</p>
<p>If not any of these schools, could you maybe recommend a few with some prestige that I could get into?</p>
<p>Is there anything more I can do this summer that can help? Start some kind of organization? Write a bestseller? Cure cancer? Get cancer? Anything?</p>
<p>Any advice would help. Thank you so much for reading this far :)</p>