<p>I am a female senior in the Bay Area of Asian descent.
Just wanted to hear the opinions of other members, please take it easy on me – I joined College Confidential really recently and this sort of thing was one of the most common threads I saw, so I just wanted to try it out for myself :) </p>
<p>SAT I : 2320 (800 Reading, 770 Math, 750 Writing; took it once at the very beginning of sophomore year – should I retake?)
SAT II: Lit: 800, Math II: 800, Bio: 780, US History: 780
GPA: 4.0 unweighted, and my school weights classes really weirdly so I have no clue what the "real" weighted GPA would be, but I took the most challenging course load possible at my high school (except deciding to go to AP Calc AB instead of straight to BC junior year)
Rank: No ranking for my school
AP (place score in parenthesis): Euro (5), Bio (5), US History (5), English Language (5), Calc AB (5), Spanish Language (5)
Senior Year Course Load: AP Chem, AP English Lit, AP US Government/AP Macroeconomics, AP Calculus BC
Major Awards: AP Scholar with Distinction, should be a National Merit Semifinalist and (hopefully) Finalist as well; minor awards for debate</p>
<p>Extracurriculars/hobbies in order of importance: Liberty in North Korea (LiNK) Club (co-president/co-founder for 2 years with 1 year planning in sophomore year; raised $4000 in a year and is nationally ranked by the organization as one of the most successful Rescue Teams in the world, beating out college/adult teams); Youth Leaderships America (YLA) (4 years: from associate to Youth Board Director to treasurer and board liaison to helping out the actual corporate board in improving the program); Yoga (Can I actually write this on my apps or is this really unprofessional? I want to, since my lifestyle has been shaped so much by it and I've been actively practicing since I was 12); Journalism (3 years, Page Editor); Speech and Debate (4 years, some minor awards at tournaments but nothing too special); Key Club (4 years active member); CSF (3 years active member); Speak For Life (treasurer to secretary to vice president); JSA (treasurer); Piano (CM level 10)
Job/Work Experience: Hollister "model" (more like walking mannequin/cashier) for a year, Math Enrichment summer job -summer before junior year, tutoring on and off since freshman year
Summer Activities:
-summer before sophomore year: YLA Summer Academy 2012 as a camper; invited to a private Kiva Camp at the nonprofit's SF headquarters
-summer before junior year: YLA Summer Academy 2013 (speaker liaison: ran around Stanford campus directing campers, counselors, and speakers; set up all the workshops; contacted speakers directly; made sure everything ran smoothly); JSA camp; Math Enrichment job for 40 hours a week, started planning out LiNK club and fundraising early
-summer before senior year: took General Psychology at a local community college for 6 weeks (got an A), worked at Hollister for 24 hours a week, fundraised for LiNK, important ethnographic study for YLA corporate board conducting thorough interviews with 25 different people; lots and lots of great music festivals and concerts</p>
<p>No hooks, no financial aid required, recs will be good, essays will be good (if I can finally decide what to write about sigh).</p>
<p>Also, will these schools actually be a good fit for me? I love to learn! As someone who has unfortunately never really been academically challenged at her highly-ranked public school (even though it is ranked as one of the most highly scoring public high schools in the nations), I really want to get into a "top" school so I can finally begin to explore academically and learn as much as possible. However, I'm a very liberal, quirky, free-spirited, outspoken, extremely social, politically active, yoga-minded (that's definitely not a word, I apologize) California girl at heart and I'm not quite sure I'd fit in at the more traditional Harvard/Princeton/Yale-type schools. I want to major in Sociology/Anthropology with the possibility of incorporating biology somewhere in there – I don't want to apply as a bio major right away because I've always been interested more in the humanities with an emphasis people & society, and fell in love with bio just this year, so none of my activities reflect that. </p>
<p>Sorry if this was wayy too long! Typing this all out helped me organize my thoughts though, so whatever you guys think, thanks for giving me the opportunity to do this. Let me know what you think! \m/</p>
Since you did quite well on SATs for someone taking it the first time, I would suggest taking it again because it never hurts to try for a higher score the 2nd time.