<p>The colleges I'm thinking of applying to are: UCSD, UC Berkeley, UCLA, U of Rochester, MIT, CalTech, Cornell, USC, Duke, Emory, Johns Hopkins, Villanova, & Washington University in St. Louis.</p>
<p>I am currently a junior in high school. I'm an Asian California resident living in the valley (my location is horrible, so that's a plus) and my school is part of the ELC program.</p>
<p>GPA AND TEST SCORES
Cumulative Weighted GPA (non-UC): 4.72
Current Cumulative Weighted GPA (UC): 4.13
Current Cumulative Unweighted GPA: 3.8</p>
<p>SAT-R: 1970 (I've only taken it once)
CR - 580
M - 720
W - 670</p>
<p>(I will retake the SAT and try the ACT / SAT subject tests)</p>
<p>Top 5% of my class (#2 out of 170)
400+ service hours</p>
<p>E/C's
-Top of my Freshman class award with a weighted GPA of 4.619 average
-4 years Marching Band, Steel Drums, Jazz Band, and piano playing for School Masses. (*I'm very good at playing piano and drumset) I get lots of service hours for this.
-Honor Band percussionist
-4 years Member of a CLC group (Christian Life Community)
-3 years Hip-Hop Club President
-1 year Junior Class President
-1 year ASB Vice President
-2 years CSF Secretary
-Been playing piano since 2nd grade
-No sports (mainly because of my asthma)
-2 years Academic Decathlon team
-2 years Link Crew member
-2 years Student Ambassador
-Tutor in chemistry</p>
<p>What else, if anything, can I improve upon?</p>
<p>“UCSD, UC Berkeley, UCLA, U of Rochester, MIT, CalTech, Cornell, USC, Duke, Emory, Johns Hopkins, Villanova, & Washington University in St. Louis.”</p>
<p>I don’t know a whole lot about the Cal system (I know, but I live in New England, so I haven’t even taken a glance at schools out there).</p>
<p>UCSD - ?
UC Berkeley - I don’t think you’d get into (but there may be different stats for in-staters)
UCLA - again, not totally sure
U Rochester - Match
MIT - Huge reach
Caltech - Huge reach
Cornell - Reach
USC - ?
Duke - Reach
Emory - Reach
JHU - Reach
Nova - Reach
WashU - Reach</p>
<p>If you manage to stay in top 4% and gain ELC status, you should be safe for UCSD, as it’s worth the same as 300 points on your SAT to them.</p>
<p>If you improve your SAT to at least 700 per section, UCLA and UCB should be “matches” unless you pick really competitive majors. I don’t have much to say about the privates you listed, other than good luck and write/interview as well as you can, because it really does count. If you’re serious about Caltech, your scores need to be sky-high though.</p>
<p>Only thing to DRASTICALLY fix: SAT Scores. </p>
<p>As of now all schools are reaches(I don’t know anything about Rochester)</p>
<p>Make an extraordinary essay that displays passion( will be verified on your EC list though)
then it would be a big turn around for you. Maybe write about your passion for music or band(I presume)</p>