Chance me please? :)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
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<p>I'm an international student (Chinese citizen), who has applied for permanent residency earlier in the year (my situation's really strange because my family's permanent residency IS approved, but we are still in the adjustment phase, which means we don't have the social security numbers yet, although we are already guaranteed a green card) and who has been living in Virginia for 3 years. I am applying for financial aid.</p>

<p>GPA: Weighted-4.29; Unweighted-somewhere between 3.9 and 4.0
Rank: 1/249 at a pretty competitive high school. I also attend a Governor's School specialized in math and science in the morning in addition to my regular school; so my classes are half-half at the two schools.</p>

<p>SAT I: 650 CR (this would make the highest combined; the highest at one setting would be 640); 800 Math; 760 Writing-----retaken SATI score unknown yet
ACT: 32 (retaken but don't know the score yet)</p>

<p>SAT II: Chinese with Listening 800; Math IIC 790; Chemistry 760; US History 720</p>

<p>I lived in China and Canada and skipped 4 grades when I was in China (which made me the youngest in my provinces history to attend middle school, at age 8). I already started Calculus at the age of 10. However, when I went to Canada I was held back 2 grades due to overly young age (they were afraid my classmates would bully me since I was a foreigner and so much younger). I did keep studying Chinese textbooks, and eventually got into interesting challenging math classes here in the U.S. I speak three Chinese dialects (including Mandarin), French, and English (obviously) fluently, and some Japanese and German. I guess those could be my highlights...</p>

<p>Some Awards: National Merit Commended Student; AP Scholar with Distinction; awards in national writing contests, Honorable Mention in the USA Mathematical Talent Search; Awards at up to State Science Fair; various awards from Canadian national math contests. There are more, but these are the important ones I guess.</p>

<p>Extra-curriculars: Pres. of Writer's Club, Founder and Pres. of Chinese Connections Club, Captain of Math Academic Bowl, Co-Captain of NHS, Co-Captain of Debate, Co-Captain of NHS. These are just senior year clubs in which I held leadership positions; leaderships from past years and clubs without leaderships weren't on here. I used to volunteer at the adult day services at VT starting summer after 10th grade, but then at the start of 11th grade felt that the position was too boring and I didn't feel like I was helping others very much, so I changed to volunteering at the local hospital, where I still volunteer now. Due to my citizenship status I cannot work paid jobs, but I did have an internship in a law office in junior year and an internship in the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute now (both unpaid), and I tutored a college student for free for her GRE Math Exam.</p>

<p>Essay-I don't know what to say...but I guess for the safe, you can assume mediocre, even though I personally hope it was better than that =P Interview was absolutely great.</p>

<p>I know my SATs probably weren't good enough and my citizenship status could probably affect my chances a lot...what do you all think about it? And please be as honest and brutal as you can. Thank you all so, so much!</p>

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<p>Ignore when I said "my citizenship status could probably affect my chances a lot," Yale said they have equal opportunity for everyone regardless of citizenship...I think I was probably thinking of some other colleges when I said that...sorry!</p>

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<p>your SAT's will hurt you, yes, but they're not the end of the world...however, your class rank makes up for that nicely. </p>

<p>i think that all your leadership positions will help you, AS LONG AS you present them as part of a cohesive profile!! you don't want the admissions committee to think that you just scrabbled for as many positions as possible--try to present a genuine passion for something in your application, whether it be Calculus, the study of languages, etc.</p>

<p>also, don't underestimate the power of your essays...especially since you're an international, it's vital that you distinguish yourself in this area. i know there isn't much time left, but work on them like crazy for the next few days, have them reviewed by good writers, etc...</p>

<p>overall, you have a shot...not an amazing one, but a shot nonetheless. go for it and i suggest applying to some other top-caliber schools as well (dartmouth and cornell come to mind).</p>

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<p>I always have a problem with chancing a person for a particular school, because I don't think that's the right way to look at it. I think you should look at chances in terms of your whole list. I see from your other posts that you've asked for chances at Harvard, Cornell, Penn, and Northwestern as well. I assume that's not your whole list.
The bottom line is that you may be accepted at one or more of those schools, but there is a real risk that you could be rejected from all of them. You need to have some safer schools on your list. Your grades, scores, and ECs are good, but they are not so good as to provide strong confidence that you will get into any particular highly selective school.</p>

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<p>You said your essays may be mediocre... And that would kill your app. If at all possible, try to improve them markedly over the next few days.</p>

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<p>Thanks! The Ivies are definitely not the only schools that I'm applying to, but I felt like my backup schools don't really need chancing as much as these, so that's why I didn't post on their forums. Thanks for all the advice! I will definitely work on my essays like crazy =P</p>

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<p>I chanced for these colleges because they are part of my reach school list (there are some others as well, but I guess I just didn't like keeping track of 15 threads at once =P)</p>