chance me, please. =]

<p>Me:
- will be a First-generation college student
- probably will get/need a lot of aid
- Middle Eastern/South Asian female
- public, competitive school in Illinois
Class rank: 26/643,
GPA:
Weighted: 4.5781, top 4%
Unweighted: 3.7632, top 8%</p>

<p>Test Scores:
ACT (first time, will retake): 29
SAT reasoning (first time, will retake):
Critical Reading: 610
Writing: 640 (horrible essay score)
Math: 660</p>

<p>Courses:
- mostly accelerated and AP classes
- Gifted course (soph year) in which I wrote an original philosophical theory... wasn't published or anything, but I might try to get it published this summer.
- AP specifics:
Have taken 5 APs so far, will take 7 as a senior.
Soph: AP Human Geo (4)
Junior: AP Lang (4), APUSH, AP Physics, AP Psych (5); didn't take all AP tests b/c mother became deathly ill (she's okay now =D) like two weeks before AP testing.
Senior: AP Euro, AP Government, AP Macro, AP Bio, AP Calc AB, AP Lit, AP Spanish</p>

<p>ECs:
Student Council:
- three years
-VP (senior year, this is a lot of responsibility!)
- Will be (senior year) president of presidents' forum (a group of all the presidents from student activities that gets together to do stuff for the school and community)
Students Action for Education:
- three years
- we do a lot of charity types of things, like the Heart Walk, Diabetes Walk, Special Olympics, etc...
- Will be (senior year) Co-president and Co-founder of a subcommittee of the club. we will hold numerous events to raise money for a few different charities (local cancer research center, local animal shelter, Action Against Hunger)
Philosophy Club:
- 2 years
Basketball:
-Manager for girls varsity basketball team (lol); one year</p>

<p>Volunteer Work:
At a local hospital:
- for about a year, probably 100 hours
- was a dedicated volunteer until my mom got really really sick... had to stop working but plan on re-starting soon
- was a greeter: I basically sat at a desk and escorted visitors and people to where they needed to go and looked up patient information for visitors.
At a local farm:
- for about a year, dunno how many hours
- help out at various events
- will start gardening soon (hopefully)
Relay for Life:
- my team raised around 2,000 dollars for the American Cancer Society</p>

<p>Recs:
- two of them will probably be pretty good, one will hopefully be very good.
- one of the teachers will hopefully be helpful considering he was my gifted teacher for 1.5 years and my World History teacher, and a Student Council adviser, so he knows me pretty well</p>

<p>Majors:
-Psychology, definitely
-Philosophy
- maybe pre-med</p>

<p>Also, what do you think my chances are for getting into the L&S honors programs?</p>

<p>You look like a strong candidate, but your scores need to come up for the honors college.</p>

<p>Looks good. </p>

<p>BTW, there is no honors college, there are Honors Programs, however, the specifics depend on the school/college within the university. They decided to offer an invitation to everyone accepted to UW to apply to the L&S Honors Program since the caliber of accepted students as risen to the point the old criteria was missing a lot of potentially successful Honors Program students (and most students start in L&S). You can join the Honors program just about any semester (not practical senior year...) so if you don't get in as a new freshman, don't worry. There are limits because of the resources available for special programs, if you qualify for an Honors class, by all means you should take it (being in the Honors Program would give you the spot over others if the course fills). Once admitted you learn when "no" means "maybe", ie you learn how to get courses to work for you regardless of the published prereqs- your SOAR advisor may get you to think outside the box, or you can do it on your own.</p>

<p>thanks for the info, wis. =] </p>

<p>I really really think I would love Madison if I was accepted into the Honors Program. See, I'm all for a liberal arts education, but don't particularly like the small-town atmosphere most of them have. Madison, hopefully, could give me both the city-ish life and the liberal arts education I want.</p>