Chance me for Stanford REA?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
1

Stanford REA. Intended major: Linguistics/Classics/Philosophy. Maybe the joint CS+X major, but probably not.

Gender: Male
Ethnicity: White
Public School ~1500 students
Income: ~$80,000

SAT: 1520 Math 770, English 750
ACT: 35 Composite. 36 math 35 english 35 science 34 reading
SAT II: 800 Math II, 780 World History
Unweighted GPA: 4.0
Weighted GPA: School doesn’t calculate
AP Scores
US History 5
World History 5
Computer Science A 5
French 5
Calculus BC 5
US Government 5
Biology 4

Freshman Courses:
Biology (accelerated)
Principles of Engineering
English 9 Honors
French II
Orchestra
AP United States History
Algebra II Honors

Sophomore Courses:
Orchestra
Honors Chemistry
Precalculus Honors
AP Computer Science A
AP World History
English 10 Honors
French III

Junior Courses:
Orchestra
AP Biology
AP Calculus BC
AP French
AP United States Government/Politics
United States Literature Honors
Aerospace Engineering

Senior Courses:
At my high school:
AP Physics I
AP Literature
Full time enrollment at a major public university:
First Semester:
Linear Algebra
Upper level undergraduate French
Elementary Arabic I
Premodern Chinese Literature.
14 Semester Hours total.
Second Semester:
Elementary Arabic II
18th Century French Philology
Elementary Russian
14 Semester Hours Total

Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): National Merit Semifinalist, Le Grand Concours (National French Contest) Gold Laureate (95% percentile national), nominated for outstanding attorney at state mock trial championship.

EXTRACURRICULARS:
Math Team 4 years (senior captain)
Mock Trial 4 years- placed 7th out of 32 at a very competitive state championship.
Very much devoted to these 2 activities… during the school year.
Also qualified for the national forensic speech championships, but I couldn’t go.

Counselor at a YMCA summer camp- I spent the entire summer (10 weeks) in the middle of nowhere as a counselor for kids 5-14, had been a camper for 11 years. The 2 summers before, I was in the leadership program for 7 weeks. Story of my life, honestly. Have over 300 volunteer hours there, too.

Teacher Rec #1: English teacher grades 9 and 11. Loves me. 10/10
Teacher Rec #2: Calculus/Aerospace Engineering teacher grade 11. Knows me well. Should be good. 9/10
Additional Rec: From my program director at summer camp. 10/10 or better. Has known me since I was 6.

2

You clearly have passions, and sound like an interesting guy who hasn’t followed a formula in high school. I say go for it.

3

Very impressive, definitely shoot for the stars.

4

You obviously have really good stats and academic rigor. I know you didn’t list this, but the state that you live in can affect your chances. For example, if you live in Kansas, your chances are way higher since there as many people there that apply to Stanford, and the academic climate is less competitive. If you live in the Bay Area, on the other hand, your chances are way lower, especially for REA since Stanford can expect to get a lot of applicants from that area in RD.

And, I know you haven’t decided, but I think you should go for the CS + X major because you have good background in science (also, so cool that you took an Aerospace Engineering class) and are in a really high math class. So you have something to show for it, and I think it will make you a stronger candidate.

5

@orange8monkey it’s not Kansas, but it’s a border of Kansas, also small midwest.

6

And related to science+humanities, I’d really like to to the history and philosophy of science track in philosophy. But CS is always an option.

7

@mualphaxi You should definitely go for what you want to do. My family’s kind of trying to push me to do sciences, but I’m more interested in the humanities