Chance Me, mostly East Coast

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I am currently a junior... but with nine more days of school, I might as well be a senior.</p>

<p>I go to a decent Michigan public high school, with about 2700 enrollment.</p>

<p>Safeties:
U of Michigan Ann Arbor</p>

<p>Possible:
Northwestern (applying HPME, that is reach)
Washington U in St. Louis (perhaps USPM, also reach)
Boston U (also applying to their accelerated MD, also reach)</p>

<p>Semi-Reach:
Johns Hopkins</p>

<p>Reach:
Stanford
Cornell
Princeton
Brown (I might apply to PLME as well)</p>

<p>I'm also applying to Harvard and Yale just because they are crapshoot, as are all Ivies.</p>

<p>Academics:
SAT I: 2120 (650 CR 760 M 710 W / 10), Possible retake in October, I'm not sure
SATII: I just took the Math 2 test, so I will post when I have score. I expect at least a 750 on it. I will also take Chemistry and Biology.
ACT: 33 (35 E 36 M 28 R 31 S), Will retake on June 11th
GPA(U): 3.968/4.000 (note: I got a 3.4 in 8th grade because I took Geometry, which was a high school class)
GPA(W): 4.200/5.000
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 1 out of 597
AP: Statistics(5) USH(4) Waiting on Lang, USGov/Poli, Macroecon, Calc AB
Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc BC, AP English Lit, AP Biology, AP Chemistry, Yearbook, Physics (our school doesn't offer honors or AP)
Major Awards: N/A</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
2 Year Varsity Tennis- Conference Champs, District Champs, Division Champs
Youngest competitor in the William C. Byrd International Piano Competition
Pianist for 12 years
Started a freelance web design company
Open source project contributor
2nd Place 2008/10 State of Michigan State Piano Competition, '11 Honorable Mention
Citizen's Bank Young Musician of the Year - 2008-09
Honorable Mention State of Michigan State Piano Concerto Competition, '10
Speak fluent English, Mandarin Chinese, and decent (yet slow) German
Assorted volunteer hours</p>

<p>President (2 years), elected, of Student Musicale, a student run music club
NHS (no leadership)</p>

<p>Summer Activities:
100+ Hours of volunteer service at a hospital
2 weeks of research with Uncle at Washington U in St. Louis
Other job shadowing and experience (1 definite)
Assorted computer development and website jobs</p>

<p>Recommendation:
Chemistry teacher loves me.
English/Yearbook teacher adores me, and we share a lot in common, other than music and political views.
Statistics(Math) teacher loves me, and I help and tutor in her classroom whenever I can.</p>

<p>Financial aid: Will apply
Intended major: Premed->med school, Biomedical Engineering, possible Computer science double major
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Male
Income level: 100-150K
Hooks: N/A</p>

<p>Essays
I would like some tips on how to write essays that set me apart. I realize I'm the stereotypical Asian with piano and tennis, and average test scores, but I do very much enjoy website design and usability and creative writing (short stories and poems) and music composition.
I'd like to focus my essay on putting a little more human into the world.</p>

2

<p>Very interesting. I Wouldnt submit your sat. Too low for your reaches. Tennis is interesting since you played 2 years instead of 3? Your piano achievements are good but you and a LOT of other pianists are competing for very few spots. Grades are ok although weighted is kind of low. Shadowing your uncle for two weeks is just saturation and second will notice it. If you want to do something biomedical, your achievements are too sparse. Your competing against Olympiad, ISEF, STS, and research kids who have put in a lot more effort than just shadowing for two weeks.
I think your Ivys are high reaches and your others are reaches. </p>

<p>Thats another thing, you’re stats are all too familiar. What makes you unique and better than every other kid who applies. If you can answer that, you’re in, but I don’t see anything. </p>

<p>Chance me!
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1155428-chance-me-hypsm.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1155428-chance-me-hypsm.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

3

<p>Butters1,</p>

<p>You know what the funny thing is? I had until May 16th to add schools to submit my SAT score to. I SWEAR I confirmed the option to send, but I guess something went wrong! So I guess it was a good thing that the scores didn’t send :D.</p>

<p>And regarding my GPA, the second semester grades haven’t came out, so I expect a further GPA boost from that. Our school does not offer many AP classes, and I try to take as many as I can.</p>

<p>I was in JV tennis for two years (actually one year, since Coach invited me to play/practice with varsity in sophomore year), and then this year, next year for varsity.</p>

<p>

What do you mean by “second”? Is it nobody?</p>

4

<p>Northwestern and Wash U are ranked ahead of JHU for them to be possible vs JHU.
HPME students usually have at least one admission to HYPS (very common if not always).</p>

<p>How is it that you are doing all web related work while aiming for medical schools? You need lot more research than hanging out with an uncle for two weeks.</p>

5

<p>Adcoms autocorrects to second on my phone. For these schools, having a demonstrated interest in your major is key, so if you say you want to study biomedical engineering it would be helpful to havesomething concrete to back it up. Get an internship, try and publish a paper. But anything involving help from a family member is immediately frowned upon. </p>

<p>So you were in JV one year and the next you were on varsity? Your team won league division and conference. Were you a top player on the team or did you play doubles? I play tennis too but I won these things as #3 singles. </p>

<p>Chance me!
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1155428-chance-me-hypsm.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1155428-chance-me-hypsm.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

6

<p>texaspg,</p>

<p>I wasn’t very sure where to classify JHU, and I was probably thinking about their medical school instead of undergraduates.</p>

<p>I regret not spending my time with more science related activities over the past year. My family is not a college preparation minded family, so this has been an adventure for all of us. That’s why we’re trying to get all the science and research related experiences done, because we were clueless for my past life.</p>

7

<p>Butters1,</p>

<p>I will try to do that this summer.</p>

<p>I was four doubles, but the majority of our top tiered spots lost, so we were a team that… ahem… stacked our team.</p>

8

<p>Mike - I am suggesting you are showing too little in terms of science activities if this is your summer plan (2 weeks with your uncle and 1 week of shadowing). Can you do more research (longer like 5-6 weeks?)</p>

9

<p>texaspg,</p>

<p>I agree with you. There are two weeks with my uncle, and I meant 1 definite; that is, at least one person I’m shadowing for an unspecified amount of time, and I’ll be volunteering at the hospital for 4 hours each week on one day.</p>

<p>I could probably try to find an internship like Butters1 said, but I’m not really sure how and where to start. I suppose Google is my friend ;)</p>

<p>I will be going on college tours in August (I know, bad timing), so that leaves the rest of June and July left. I could do some in September, but that is when school starts again, and I’m extra busy because of piano competitions, tennis (ends in October), and standardized test chaos.</p>

<p>Thanks for your help though. It has made me think about more things.</p>

10

<p>See in California, #4 doubles doesn’t even play. Our matches are 6 singles and 3 doubles matches. So to win league, division, and conference at #4 doubles is great and all, but you cant be recruited off of that. They want to see what you contributed to the team, and at our school #4 doesn’t play. Period. So if they stacked it than you should have had some playing time, and you need to make that clear to the adcoms. If you were a top player, you can see clearly what you contributed to win these awards.</p>

<p>And again, these are top schools who recruit top players and high-achievers in their ECs. They’ll want to know why you were not #1 on your team and why your only experience in Biomedical research is two weeks with your uncle. </p>

<p>Theres a girl at our school who had a 4.8 and she did research for a year and she published a paper. But she was not admitted anywhere because the paper was her DAD’s. She had worked in a relative’s lab. What that shows is she did not show ANY initiative in finding a lab/internship and was therefore riding off of another’s success. She finally got into UCLA after being denied by every Ivy and Stanford. </p>

<p>You have 2 weeks! Not even a year! And it was a relative’s lab. I agree with texaspg. If YOU (not your uncle or the people above you on tennis team) dont do anything substantial in tennis or in science, youll have a hard time just getting into Michigan. These are all top schools meaning you have to do something on the top just to get accepted, and #4 doubles is not on top.</p>

11

<p>I have over 1500+ hours of lab work and I’ll be working at Oxford this summer to collaborate on a project. In november, I gave a lecture at Harvard. The MIT admissions officers said that because I was going after actual papers instead of research-less science fairs, I was more ‘complex,’ even though my parents have been unemployed for 4 years and they make nothing. I am committed to my major and I have the props to show for it. Ask around for internships and prepare for Intel STS. College fairs are not important compared to insuring you get admitted.</p>

12

<p>Butters1,</p>

<p>I will look into finding an internship. Thanks for that tip.</p>

<p>I concede I do not have enough experience, and unfortunately, I will not have enough time to achieve what the girl you talked about did, much less yours. So I’ll have to make the best of what I have right now.</p>

<p>And I’m going to the actual colleges themselves, hence the college tour. But I know what you meant; same difference… -_-</p>