Chance me for Ivy, Stanford, and other top schools please?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Well, before we start, i'd like to thank you for taking the time!</p>

<p>Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Chinese (first gen immigrant, came here when i was 9)
Location: Northern California
High School: Public with about 600 in my class pretty decent
HS graduating year : 2011 (junior right now)
Class Rank: School only ranks in deciles, so officially top 10%, possibly top 1% (2nd highest gpa in my class as far as i know, but our school doesn't have official "ranks")
Will apply for financial aid: Yes</p>

<p>ACADEMICS:
GPA - Unweighted: 4.00
GPA - Weighted: 4.6+ (will get higher by the end of this year.)
*note my years of music dragged down my gpa by a noticeable amount, pretty much the highest amount of ap/honors classes allowed at our school.
City college courses, This summer will be taking math at UCD.</p>

<p>Test scores:
SAT I: M(770), CR(770), W(730) Essay(10) Total: 2270
SAT II: Math II(800) Chem(800)
*pending Bio and next year physics
APs:
sophmore: Chem (5) Calc AB(5) World History (5) Art History (4)
Junior: pending (6 of them... hopefully i can get decent scores)
Senior: ??</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
Piano: Cm branch honors, random other stuff
Oboe: school symphony principal chair, UCD summer symphony 2009 principal chair
Tutor: volunteer tutor
Research: UCD biomed engineering (just starting, hopefully produce something good this summer?)
Couple other random stuff, (ie robotics, cross country, mostly did them for fun, time consuming, but not really that important i think..)</p>

<p>LEADERSHIP:
Science bowl: Captain
Math team: A-team
Chinese club: president
Csf, NHS: members</p>

<p>COMMUNITY SERVICE:
Local hospital volunteer: ~50 hours
Various other community services since 10th grade ~200 hours</p>

<p>WORK EXPERIENCE:
Freelance Tutor 10th-present
couple other random jobs (ie house sitter, photo researcher etc, not that much time on these projects)</p>

<p>HONORS & AWARDS:
Nor-cal ARML team (10)
NSL Chemistry champion school, silver individualist (10)
Science Bowl 3rd place regional (10)
AP Scholar with Honor (10)
U.S Chemistry Olympiad regional 3rd , National semi-finalist (11)
Sac Math tournament 1st in individual and 1st in team (11)
High school contest in Math Modeling national outstanding (11)
U.S Biology Olympiad national semi-finalist (11)
F.I.R.S.T robotics semi finalist (11)</p>

<p>additional information:
-Grew up low-income, though not anymore through my hardworking mom. (QB pre-college scholarship denied)
-single parent household, dad passed away when i was 6
-first generation immigrants
-Uncle is professor at Stanford (i guess it doesn't count for legacy so.. idk)</p>

<p>Just your average Asian aiming for the stars...</p>

<p>Colleges:</p>

<p>Stanford
Princeton
Harvard
MIT
Caltech
Cornell
Brown
Columbia
UCB
UCLA
UCSD
UCD</p>

<p>(yay for ELC for UCs, at least i know worse case scenario isn't utter failure)</p>

<p>Also, anyone have any other recommendations on colleges?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>Anyone care to give a short reply?
Suggestions for other colleges to apply to?</p>

<p>Anything would help…</p>

3

<p>Wow, quite a lengthy list. Your credentials are amazing. Try to mention something else about the music too. I can’t really tell you your chances other than that you should get into the Ucs and the lower level Ivy’s, idk about the rest but keep working hard.</p>

<p>Chance Me?</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/916686-chance-me-por-favor.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/916686-chance-me-por-favor.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

4

<p>The UC’s seem like an easy in. HYPSM, nobody ever knows so a reach there, though your app is pretty impressive. Caltech is kind of in the same category, but its so small its hard to judge. Cornell and Brown are probably low reaches and Columbia is a reach. If you apply to all of those schools then you probably will get into at least a couple. Other colleges…it depends what you want to do. If you are just looking for good colleges in general I think of Duke, Chicago, Swarthmore, Washington U in St. Louis off the top of my head, but that’s probably because i want to apply there :p.</p>

<p>Chance me back? <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/898730-chances-duke-penn-cornell.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/898730-chances-duke-penn-cornell.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

5

<p>As far as music goes.</p>

<p>Been playing music for pretty much most of my life.</p>

<p>Circumstances (low income immigrant family) caused me to quit piano when i left China, and i picked it back up in freshman year, though I’m progressed surprisingly quick.
Piano: CM branch honors, Guild level (i forgot lol, something high school diploma testing this year?) </p>

<p>Oboe: Principal chair in 9th, 11th so far, Principal chair in UCD summer symphony 2009.
Haven’t done much outside of these two groups except being heired to play at a few other events, nothing big, mostly churchy holiday celebrations. I do this for fun, so i don’t audition for states orchestra/band stuff.</p>

<p>BTW
Has anyone looked into those B.S/M.D programs? such as the ones at Brown and UCSD/Caltech? How competitive are those programs and whats the likelihood of me getting in those?</p>

<p>East asian immigrant… help or hurt? I know my dream school Stanford dislike Asians, but am I still screwed even if I’m first generation and grew up below the middle class?</p>

6

<p>Nice stats. ECs strongly reflect your interests. Just keep going what you’re doing…
Imma long-time lurker, don’t mistake my post count for inexperience lol</p>

<p>Stanford - mid reach (see MIT below)
Princeton - mid-high reach (reach for most people, won’t be surprised if you get in)
Harvard - mid-high reach (see MIT below)
MIT - mid reach (see Princeton)
Caltech - low-mid reach (see MIT above)
Cornell - low reach (won’t be surprised if you get in)
Brown - low reach (won’t be surprised if you get in)
Columbia - low-mid reach (a toss-up)
UCB - match match (a match-match!)
UCLA - low match
UCSD - low match
UCD - low match</p>

7

<p>O also, I live in CA, and i’m pretty sure i’ll get ELC next year for top 4% of class at my school, and since my school is a pretty decent public school, I think 95% of ELCs that apply to Berkeley gets in, but if I do engineering that might be different…</p>

<p>And i’m also curious, do first generation immigrant family status help? what about growing up in a single parent household?</p>

8

<p>I’d say you’ve got a pretty good shot</p>

9

<p>Humm… seems like i’ve just won the UCD teen biotech challenge, does that help?</p>

10

<p>I think that definitely helps esp. if you are going into a biotech major in college. I think you are a strong applicant overall but I might retake the SAT because a 10 on your essay is kind of weak (everything else is obviously amazing). Also, I noted in your first post that you were raised by a single parent. I am in the same situation. Do you know if that is considered a plus on the application? I know that colleges keep records of their family demographics, but I do not know how much of a difference being raised by a single parent would make.</p>

11

<p>Hum yea… perhaps someone else could help both of us on that? I haven’t known any people going into top college with a single parent, so i really don’t have any perspective on this.</p>

12

<p>I’d say everything looks pretty solid for suitable candidacies at these schools. Of course, nothing’s ever certain at HYPSMs, so I won’t try to sugarcoat it for you haha.
Stanford- Low reach maybe high match if you decide to do SCEA here
Princeton- Low Reach; our school recently had 10 acceptances here, and you’re stats are at minimum par those admits
Harvard-Reach, i’d say you should try talking more about your family and background at these places
MIT-Reach
Caltech- not too sure
Cornell- High match- i’d stress on the “volunteering” aspect for here
Brown- not too sure
Columbia- High match
UCB-Match/ quasi-safety since you’re not OOS
UCLA-Safety
UCSD-Safety
UCD- SAFETY
Of course, it depends on what you’re planning on doing in college.</p>

13

<p>Stanford - mid reach
Princeton - mid reach
Harvard - high reach
MIT - low reach
Caltech - low reach
Cornell - IN
Brown - IN
Columbia - IN
ALL UC schools - IN</p>

<p>If you could bag one or two big awards like Intel, Siemens, or be a finalist in any olympiad competitions, you’ll definitely get into Caltech/MIT, and probably H/P/S.</p>

14

<p>no Olympiad finalist status here lol… not good enough, and for Chem Olympiad, i’m not US citizen.</p>

<p>Also, anyone have any idea how the single parent hook might work?</p>

<p>Also, should i do SCEA Stanford? I’ve heard it helps/hurts your chances from different people…</p>

15

<p>I guess if Stanford is your top choice school, and you are able to convey your passion to the committee, then by all means do apply Stanford SCEA.</p>

16

<p>I need some advice plzz
I am an international student and I am considering to apply to a few strong schools in the US.
The problem is I have a GPA of 3.2 which is not that high.
I have a strong backround for ec so I think I’m safe considering those.
I just need to know how much do I need to score on the SAT to probably get accepted at schools such as duke, caltech, pennsylvania, cornell, etc…
Can anyone also tell me if the requirements of international students differ from the americans.
Thaank yoou :)</p>