Chance me for Top Schools (International Student)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Personal Background

  • Grade: Rising senior/ going to grade 12
  • Residence: Lived in Canada (Vancouver) for 9 years
  • Ethnicity: Korean (Asian)
  • Citizenship: Canadian
  • Gender: Male
  • Class: Middle/ upper class
  • Multilingual: Fluent in Korean, English, able to understand Japanese, Chinese

Academic Profile:

(** Note that in Canada, we don’t use GPA’s, we use percentages**)

Grade 9 (Avg: 86% A-)

  • Social studies : 69% (C+)
  • English : 79% (B-)
  • Science : 79% (B-)
  • Business : 93% (A)
  • Art: 93% (A)
  • Fitness: 93% (A)
  • Music: 93% (A)

Grade 10 (Avg: 88% A)

  • Planning 80% (B-)
  • English 81%(B)
  • Social Studies 83% (B)
  • Fitness 87% (A-)
  • Science 94% (A+)
  • Pre calculus 96% (A+)
  • Music 97% (A+)

Grade 11 (Avg: 95% A+)

  • Computer Programming: 86% (A-)
  • Fitness (Lunch): 86% (A-)
  • English: 91% (A)
  • Fitness (Course): 92% (A)
  • Social Studies: 94% (A+)
  • Japanese: 95% (A+)
  • Comp Info technology 95% (A+)
  • Physics: 95% (A+)
  • Chemistry: 96% (A+)
  • Pre calculus: 96% (A+)
  • Korean: 97% (A+)
  • Music 97% (A+)
  • Jazz 98% (A+)
  • Intro Japanese 100% (A+)
  • Biology 100% (A+)

Grade 12 (Avg: 97% A+)

** My school only offers 1 AP course, that is, AP Calc AB

  • English 12 90% (A)
  • Computer prgm 95% (A+)
  • Chemistry: 98% (A+)
  • Physics 98% (A+)
  • Korean 98% (A+)
  • Music 98% (A+)
  • AP Calculus AB 99% (A+)
  • Jazz 99% (A+)
  • Japanese 99% (A+)
  • Biology 99% (A+)

*** I finished all my courses in my junior year.
*** So, I’m planning to graduate 6 months early in high school,
get some overseas volunteering experience, do internships, etc.

AP Exams

AP Psychology (4)
AP Calc AB (5)
AP Calc BC (5)
AP Stats (4)
AP Physics (4)
AP Micro (5)
AP Macro (5)

Other Standardized Tests

New SAT: (first try) : 800 on math, 650 on English, composite: 1450
** Planning to take another one, predicted to be 1520 for the second time

I took two ACT’s, did very bad and am not submit them. Scores are available upon request.

SAT II Chinese: 730
SAT II Math II C: 800
SAT II Physics: 800

Awards

---- Academic awards ----
• Academic Honors, Honor Roll Society.
• Honor Roll With Distinction
• Distinction Awards for Top Students

---- Music related ----
• Outstanding Music 10 student award
• Honorable Mention – Concert Band 11
• Jazz Festival silver place award

---- STEM related ----
• AP Scholar with Honor Award from Collegeboard
• Grade 9 Math Selective Honors Program
• Top AP Calculus AB Student award
• Top Biology 11 student award
• Simon Fraser University Faculty of Applied Sciences Math Award (given to 1/350)
• Math Contest – Univ of Waterloo– top 25%
• Math Contest – AMC participation
• Math Contest – UBC – Math Challengers – participation certificate
• Chemistry Competition

---- Others ----
• Chinese Proficiency Test HSK 5 Certificate
• MUN debate competition participation

EC’s

  • 1000+ Volunteer hours

Volunteer…

  • Korean School Head Teacher at BCIT (make own class materials, teach)
  • Chinese School assistant teacher at BCIT
  • Mind Lecture translator at BCIT
  • Volunteer at AIDS Vancouver (helping people with aids)
  • Cultural expo at Simon Fraser University representing Rwanda
  • FreeGeek Volunteer (recycle and donate electronics)
  • Overseas English Camp at First Nations Reserve in Manitoba - Head teacher
  • Overseas English Camp at Mexico - Head Teacher
  • UC Berkeley National Student Leadership Conference for Engineering

Clubs:

  • Leader of Me2We club at our school
  • Leader of peer tutoring club at our school
  • Leader of event hosting club at our school
  • Leader of school CHEMISTRY club
  • Leader of school PHYSICS club
  • Leader of school BIOLOGY club
  • Leader of school CODING club
  • Member of school ROBOTICS club
  • Member of school MATH club
  • A tutor for percussion rudiments
  • Member of KWAP club in school (helping out homeless people)
  • Member of school philanthropist group "color run"

Universities of Interest

Major: Computer Science
Doing early admissions for all

Reach schools
1. Stanford university
2. Carnegie Mellon University
3. UC Berkeley
4. Princeton university

5. Cornell University

6. Columbia University
7. Caltech
Competitive schools
1. UCLA

2. University of Washington

3. NYU

4. USC
5. Georgia tech

Safety schools
1. UC Irvine

2. UC San Diego

Questions…

  • As you can see, my gr 9&10 marks are awful. Are those going to affect my application alot?
  • Should I take another SAT II?
  • Should I take more AP’s even though I can’t put them on my application?

Thank you so much for reading this guys! I would really really really appreciate tips, just all tips in general, on how to improve my current application. If you need more information, please let me know.

2

Since I don’t think California schools including Stanford consider 9th grade grades you should be alright with those schools, also you have a rising GPA which is another good thing. SAT English is non competitive though. Awards seem to be all at the school level…so you have a good shot at getting into your safety schools, the others are probably all reaches for you right now. If the SAT English goes up then you have a chance for the other schools.

3

You can afford all of these schools???
The UC’s are California public universities. They don’t have early admission. They look at grades AND stats for 10th and 11th grades.
Have you researched any of these schools?

4

Thank you alot for your feedback CU123! I really appreciate it :slight_smile:

5

Yes, luckily, my parents are able to fully support me financially with all of these schools.

6

Oh yes, I meant EA for for all the schools that do offer early admission. I’m aware that the UC’s don’t offer EA’s. I didn’t bother making a separate list for all the schools without EA’s.

7

For CS, UCLA/USC are no match and certainly UCSD is no safety for you!

8

Agree with @uclaparen9 about UCLA/USC and UCSD. I will also add the UC Irvine is not a safety, maybe a Low Match for CS. You need to start forumulating your college list from the bottom up. Consider UCSC or UCR as a Safety schools.

9

Hmm, may I ask what makes you say that? Low school grades, my SAT’s? How can i get a better chance with these schools? Thanks for the feedback!

10

UC’s only consider your 10-11th grades in their GPA calculation, so your 10th grades will impact your chances but since you have 12th grades also with an upward trend, it may offset the lower grades in 10th. CS is probably one of the most competitive majors at the UC’s, so nothing is guaranteed even with good GPA/Grades and test scores. Safety schools are basically guaranteed admission which none of these qualify.

Since you are International applicant, the UC’s are planning to limit the # of OOS and International applicants and so in-state applicants are given priority. Just stating that the UC’s can be unpredictable and you should have a Canadian school as a safety.

Graduating early will also not be a big boost since applications are due Nov 30 and anything done after this date will not be considered in your admissions review.

You are a qualified and competitive applicant, but the UC’s listed are not good safety schools.

11

^^^They are saying that the UC’s are SO competitive for CS, that as a non-resident and with weaker grades in the year that counts {sophomore}, your stats won’t be competitive for CS, when compared to resident students with better grades.

Also, the State of California is under enormous political pressure, from residents, to reduce the numbers of non-residents (especially international students) at the UCs and include more resident students in admissions. So, you are already at a disadvantage in an impacted major.

But with your list of schools and your funding, you should be able to find and focus on schools that aren’t so competitive and impacted for CS. Remember that the UC’s are public universities. The classes are huge.

12

Thank you for the clarifications @“aunt bea” and @Gumbymom . Wow, all of these comments are very very helpful feedbacks and I can’t thank all of you enough for all the help you are giving me here. Thank you so much guys