<p>Okay, the schools I'm looking at are:
-UC San Diego
-UC Berkeley
-MIT
-Carnegie Mellon
-Cal Poly San Luis Obispo</p>
<p>Cumulative GPA: ~3.8 unweighted, ~4.1 weighted
APs taken: European History, American History, Language and Composition, Physics, Computer Science, Calculus AB, Government, Macroeconomics
SAT I: 800 critical reading, 770 math, 710 writing
SAT II: 740 American history, 700 math 2 (will be re-taking math 2 and taking physics in the fall)
PSAT: 224 </p>
<p>Extracurriculars:
-Girl Scouts (earned my Gold Award recently - it's the highest award in Girl Scouting)
-4 years of 0 period orchestra
-3 years on two separate robotics teams (at the same time, of course).
-AYSO soccer</p>
<p>I know that my extracurriculars and awards are lacking (in my defense, robotics is really, really time consuming). My school also doesn't rank students, so I have no idea where I am in that regard. Letters of rec should be good, essays will be at least average. I'm also white and female.</p>
<p>So, what are my chances?</p>
<p>Uh…the lack of ECs is definitely going to hurt you at all of those places ^^ Can you list any awards you’ve won? In Robotics, for example? I know it’s reallyyy time consuming and I totally empathize, but that section of your app is looking weak indeed
The GPA/SAT scores are solid… and should be enough to get you into UCSD, at least. MIT, you have little/no chance (sorry if that came out harsh…) Berkeley/Carnegie Mellon seem like high reaches for you too. In short, what do you have that makes you jump out from the pool of applicants? Everything seems good but normal here…
And I dont know anything about Cal Poly, so I wont try and chance you on that one.</p>
<p>In robotics, my team(s) have won several awards (including a couple at the world championships), but it’s a team thing, not an individual thing, so I have no idea whether they count or not.</p>
<p>Are you kidding me?! Of course they count! You were part of the team, weren’t you? 
Basically, YES. List them.</p>
<p>Well…Okay then. =P</p>
<p>(If you’re not familiar with the program, these aren’t going to make much sense, but I’ll try to give an explanation of what they are.)</p>
<p>Motivate Award (for being the most spirited team at the competition) x 3 (one at the World Championships for 07-08)
Connect Award (for reaching out to the community and spreading awareness of science and engineering) x2
Finalist Alliance (basically, 2nd place) x 5 (one at Worlds)
Inspire Award (for going above and beyond in all judging categories, excellent robot performance, inspiring and helping other teams, etc… basically being a perfect team, and yes this is the hardest award to get) x2</p>
<p>EDIT: Forgot the other team… there’s much less there, but we did get the Rookie of the Year Award (outstanding performance in competition your first year) at our regional in 2008.</p>
<p>90% of my friends are all geeks on the Robotics team, so yes, that does make sense to me 
And those are impressive achievements that colleges want to see, so good job
I still think MIT is a high reach though…</p>
<p>Which is pretty much what I was expecting to hear, honestly. I know MIT is a huge reach school and always will be, it’s the other ones that I really wanted to know my chances at.</p>