chools im applying to (im applying RD for all)
Reach- Stanford, Berkeley, Cornell (i know stanford is a crapshoot but im hoping a bit from berkeley and cornell can someone tell me how much chance i have at these sools
Safety- UCIrvine BostonU Northeastern
Match- USC, UCLA ,Tulane, Uni of Virginia, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, WashU, Emory, UCSB
Objective:
SAT I: 2050 (will retake in Oct, I know my current SAT is low but I’m working on it and hoping to get 2200)
SAT II: 790 Math II, 780 Chemistry
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): I don’t know because I do A levels at school. My predicted grades are A for all 4 subjects I’m taking.
Ranking: I’m 1st in my class of 40 (my school is new and its a pretty expensive private school so not that many students)
AP (place score in parenthesis): School dont offer
IB (place score in parenthesis): School dont offer
Senior Year Course Load: A level Chemistry, Maths, Literature, Economics
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): 1st place for public speaking contest in grade 9, Principal Award for International Understanding grade 9, principal’s most honorable award for best student in grade 11, UKMT math challenge bronze medal grade 9, UKMT math challenge bronze medal grade 11, Best presentation for City Enterprise Challenge, Best in school for Economics, Literature, Vietnamese, ICT, Science and highest IGCSE scores in school (I dont know if these are consider major tho)
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):
-Student Council (9,11,12) - President (9,11,12)
-Eco-committee (9,10,11,12) - Co-founder (9), President (11,12) - this a committee that works on environmental issues in the school and local community, I’ve started multiple projects withing the school
-Community service club (10,11,12) - Co-founder (10), President (12) - set up an official fundraiser and fundraising system for the school, organize multiple book drives, clothes drive, fund raising events within school for local orphanages etc
-Mentoring (11,12) - mentor 2 students in Maths and Economics during grade 11 and I’m setting up a whole school mentoring system that gets a senior year student to mentor a younger year student in grade 12
-President of “Three Poles Talk project” - this is a project where I co-operate with my school and a PR firm in bringing a Hong Kong environmentalist to Vietnam to deliver 3 session of speeches for 4 days at my school and 2 other campuses of my school, and event with the local community
-Piano (10 years) - taking Yamah course (it’s a japanese piano program and I’m grade 5 - i know this is not impressive compared to lots of other people ) and performed at local shows and took part in a drama with the student at my piano school every year
-Swimming (6 years) - train with personal coach at local swimming pool was on the school swim team only for a year tho
(I’m well aware that my athletic and musical activities are not my strong suits they’re just hobbies that I take up to balance with school life hehe)
Job/Work Experience: unpaid internship at national magazine during summer before grade 11 and grade 12 (i write and translate articles and do a lot of office tasks)
Volunteer/Community service:
- Volunteer at local orphanages with school community club
- I form an English tutor group (I’m head of the tutor group) of 5 mentors and travel to a pagoda in a province in Vietnam and teach English for 50 kids every summer
-Estimated volunteer hours: estimated 150 hours
Summer Activities:
-Internship at national magazine
-English teaching for kids at the pagoda
-Joined a summer camp (called Superteen Bootcamp - this camp trains young people with academic, life skills, NLP, goal setting, etc) - I was a camp leader when I joined it in summer before grade 11 and return as a camp mentor (I was Team leader of the mentor group) in summer before grade 12. I’m also in a coaching program with the professor who is also the lead mentor of the camp.
Essays (rating 1-10, details): Common App Essay - wrote about a failure ( which was failing student council president election during grade 10) and how the failure opens me to the path of finding my passion while dealing with fear and uncertainty in life and final lesson is that I realize how the passion should not be my ultimate goal because life is about learning, experiencing, making mistakes and growing from them.
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details):
Teacher Rec #1: Literature teacher (I’m always best student in Literature class and I have a really really close relationship with my teacher)
Teacher Rec #2: Economics teacher (I’m also best student in Economics and I have super close relationship with this teacher. Also work with during my mentoring of the two students and setting up the school mentoring system adn the city enterprise challenge)
Counselor Rec: My vice principal is writing this one because my school doesn’t have a counselor but I have really close relationship with him because i work with him during the student council projects, community service project (and he was the one who nominates me to be student council president next year)
Additional Rec: My principal is writing this one and he knows me really well because most of the projects I do with the school I have to work with him and the vice principal (and I received 2 awards from him twice)
Strength: I have leadership roles in most of my ECs, and I started up a lot of activities in those clubs etc at my school because my school is a new one and when I started enrolling there there was very few activities going on, very good relationship with teachers
Weaknesses: My piano and swimming are quite mediocre haha, I dont have international awards like first price in a science contest or sth, I dont volunteer for any organizations (because I start up with most of my volunteering activities), and I dont have research experiences
Applied for Financial Aid?: Not Sure yet, but probably not
Intended Major: I’m looking at the interdisciplinary programs of the schools (for ex: development studies for berkeley, etc) and I’m interested in psychology and creative writing for minor
Country (if international applicant):Vietnam
School Type: British International School (my school is very new, it has only been opened for 4 years and it hasnt got much connections with organizations and it also very hard to start an activity in the school)
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Female
Income Bracket: I don’t know exactly, I’ll say I’m middle class
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): I went to the best middle school in the country ( which required an extremely competitive entrance exam and I was 2nd place for the exam) and at the end of grade 8 I received a full ride 4 year scholarship to study in the international school that I’m currently in (idk if these are hooks tho… should I put these in the additional information session?)