Chance me for the UCs and Stanford?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hello! I’m an upcoming senior and I was wondering good of a shot I have at the UCs and Stanford. I know Stanford is a reach for everybody, but I just want to know if I have any chance at all! I go to a big public school in a pretty low income area and I have to work to sustain my family because my dad had a huge gambling problem and was extremely abusive towards my mom and I, so I’m a little worried I won’t be up to par with the rest of the applicants in terms of grades and extracurriculars :((

GPA: 3.98 UW, 4.85 W
UC GPA uncapped: around 4.5 ish?
Class rank: 1/760
SAT: 1580
SAT II: 780 Math 2, 800 Bio, 800 Chem
ACT: 35
APs: Environmental Science (4), Human Geography (4), Biology (5), World History (5), Seminar (4), Chemistry (5), Lang (5), Research (4), U.S History (5)
Major Awards: National AP Scholar, the AP capstone diploma if that counts ahaha, USNCO high honors, I won a nanotech innovation competition @ UCLA my junior year, president’s service volunteer award (gold), national merit commended, some local piano awards
Senior Year Courseload: AP Calc BC, AP gov/Econ (they’re one semester classes), AP Lit, AP physics 1, AP Spanish, AP Psych, Marching Band: CG

Extracurriculars (leadership in parentheses): Marching Band: Colorguard, Winterguard, Link Crew, Peer Tutor (Manager), I can’t disclose the name or else I might risk my privacy but I cofounded a club directed towards helping the elderly in our community and we raised $10K in donations for the Alzheimer’s Association (president), Interact, I organized a fundraiser that raised $20K to South Sudan to build water wells and schools (president), CSF (secretary), NHS, leadership program (mentor, again I can’t disclose the name)

Job/Work Experience: I’ve been working since the 9th grade at a pho restaurant late at night to help my family pay the bills. I also interned at a local hospital where I worked in shifts and rotations and the internship was focused mainly on patient care. I think this internship will play a huge part in my essays because it is the main factor on why I want to go into the healthcare field. I will be coming back this year as a director to guide future interns!

Summer Activities: neurology camp at UCI, brain cancer research at UCI (I was chosen to continue my research in their labs my senior year), working @ a tutoring center, sociology and psychology classes at a community college (earned As in both of them), taught Viet at a temple on the weekends

Volunteer/Community Service: over 500+ hours, my volunteering was pretty spread out over my clubs and activities. The only constant volunteering I’ve done is teaching low income children piano and music theory for free and I have about 80-90 hrs of that

Applying for financial aid: yes oh my goodness
Intended Major: probably neuroscience
State: CA
School Type: large public
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Female
Income Bracket: under 30K huge yikes
Hooks: first gen

Thank you for your time! Again, I know Stanford is a huge reach for everybody, but I was just wondering if there is any hope for me :’)

2

be as brutal as possible please I really don’t mind!

3

Since you’re not going into Engineering, you should have a very strong chance for Berkeley and UCLA, possibly Regents. UCB does not have Neuroscience as an undergrad major. You would need to go to an associated major like Cognitive Science or Cell Biology.

As far as Stanford goes, it’s a reach for everyone. You do have the scores and the grades and the main question will be - how do you make yourself quirky/unique and/or stand out in your essays? Here’s an idea - gambling is a huge societal problem in the Vietnamese community (Chinese too). The Vietnamese community is very large in the San Jose area along with Orange County and perhaps you can tie in some sort of outreach for these so-called victims with what happened in your family and what you want to do In the future and/or what you are doing now to help. I’m not sure what specifics you would want to get into but gambling is something that frequently gets swept under the rug as a societal issue.

If you get your essays right I think you have a very good shot for Stanford as well, which is a great deal because they probably would cover you 100% for tuition and room and board.

4

Thank you so much!

5

You are a very competitive applicant. Your stats and ECs are great. Write good essays and you could get accepted to any of these schools