<p>Hi, I just sent in my common app for the following schools, and I'd like some opinions on whether I'll be accepted and whatnot:
Chicago
CalTech
Princeton
Harvey Mudd
Vanderbilt (kind of a safety)
Stanford
USC (again, sort of a safety)</p>
<p>Some qualitative details:
I'm a white Russian adoptee living in Memphis. I've been on my schools rather competitive track and cross country teams all four year of high school (17 hours a week, all but four weeks a year, and that includes 6 AM practices every day in the summer plus 3-4 @ 7 PM in the summer my last two years because I was faster and had to train harder). I love physics and read up on it a whole lot, but who doesn't on this site? One thing that might set me apart is my partial photographic memory which, of course, won't really show up on my application but has allowed me to do some cool stuff (the coolest is probably becoming my school's best french student without much effort at all; I took french 1 sophomore year, french 2 junior, and skipped french 3 to AP this year. I even perfect scored a national french test last year so that was cool).
As for my essays, I think I did pretty good. I had a few really really good ones and a few that were just good.
My recs are probably good but maybe not great
I did some national competition in HOSA (health occupations students of america) because I love the teacher who sponsors it and our group had tons of fun. The summer after my sophomore year, I won 8th in the nation in my competitive event, medical math, and last summer I took home the gold. That was kinda cool too but probably arbitrary because I don't want to go into medicine
Also I should say that my family has had some pretty bad financial struggles since my 7th grade year. Not TERRIBLE but I have come home to the power being turned off a few times. I provided details in my commonapp. In fact, I covered most of this stuff in the commonapp
Quantitative:
GPA W: 4.46
GPA UW: 3.96 <-- because of a B in art 1 freshman year, a folly I'm hoping admissions people can overlook
APs:
AP eng language, 5
APUSH, 5
AP Stat, 4 (wasn't really prepared because I hadn't been in the class for 2 months before the test; my school does trimesters its weird)
This year: French, English Lit, Physics c (both), Calc BC, US Gov
Expect 5s in those, maybe one 4 if I'm feeling lazy
Test scores: SAT: 2120 <-- this was before I realized I was good at taking tests, I'm hoping schools will overlook when they see my act.
PSAT: 216 <--same, I took it before I was good at tests, but it got national merit
SAT2 one sitting: physics: 800 math2: 800 french:730
ACT: 36 (36 36 36 35), one sitting
Class rank 13/373 = top 4 percent at a pretty good nationally recognized school. The bad rank is a result of that b in art 1, I should say.
Now, I apologize if I came across as pretentious, didn't mean to but I can see I was.
I have a job tutoring kids for about 6 hours a week during the school year, got it this year
Last summer I spent working on a farm for 3-4 days a week, 8 hours a day, all while balancing my two daily practices and learning french.
THATS ALL FOLKS</p>