<ul>
<li>SAT I: 2290 (superscore)</li>
<li>ACT: 36</li>
<li>SAT II: 800 US history 780 Math II 780 Bio M 800 Chem</li>
<li>Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.88 ish (had a C in Am. Lit. Honors and a few B's here and there but my focus is science for which I received straight A's and my context familial issues and factors come into play here)</li>
<li>Weighted GPA (out of 4.5): 4.36</li>
<li>Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): school doesn't rank but I'm definitely in top 10% and most likely top 5%</li>
<li>AP (place score in parenthesis): Biology (5) US History (4) Calc BC (3 TT_________TT) Calc AB (4)</li>
<li>IB (place score in parenthesis): N/A</li>
<li>Senior Year Course Load: AP Chem, AP English 5, AP Spanish 5, AP Gov/Econ, AP Statistics, TA'ing for AP Bio teacher</li>
<li>Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.):
-AP Scholar, NMSF (projected)
-possibly Intel/Siemens
-Letter of Commendation from Mayor
-President's Volunteer Service Award (Gold)
-my research is published in a national microbiology magazine
-developing a vaccine for curing a bacterial disease (will be an author in the final paper for vaccine)</li>
<li>Other Awards/Honors:
-Scholar Athlete
-artworks chosen to represent school/district at a district art show and a regional art show
-district Merit Reading Award (local)
-TOPIK (test of proficiency in korean) level 5 competency</li>
</ul>
<p>Subjective:</p>
<ul>
<li>Extracurriculars (VERY dedicated to all of them):
-Lead tutor of the school's Student Center for Success
-Chairman of the volunteer organization of the largest Korean school outside of Korea -Varsity Badminton 3 years (JV for 1 year)
-Varsity Speech&Debate (founding member)
-Student Government (senate 2 years)
-NHS/CSF (not that these count for anything)
-Medical Research at a very highly-ranked research university developing a vaccine to be used worldwide
-Founder and chairman of community health youth council hosted by Kaiser Permanente (working to implement this in KP medical centers across the country)</li>
<li>Job/Work Experience: None</li>
<li>Volunteer/Community service:
-Research volunteer at a lab at the aforementioned university (1 year)
-Korean School volunteer (4 years)
-Kaiser Permanente volunteer (4 years)
-Tutor (2 years)</li>
<li>Summer Activities: Research/volunteering/organizing things for K. school/college course in psychology</li>
<li>Essays: Very well written awesome essay that shows my passion well, and another that talks about me as a person (not sure about this one yet :P)</li>
</ul>
<p>Other</p>
<ul>
<li>State (if domestic applicant): CA</li>
<li>Country (if international applicant): US</li>
<li>School Type: Public</li>
<li>Ethnicity: Asian</li>
<li>Gender: M</li>
<li>Income Bracket: Mid (but soon to be low)</li>
<li>Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): First generation college in US (not really a hook, I know)</li>
</ul>
<p>*Note: went through some harsh family stuff (parents separated after months of ugly fighting/grandfather diagnosed with terminal cancer/close relative diagnosed with terminal illness), I also helped my failing brother pass through 7th grade by spending a whole lot of time with him while taking care of my depressed/'suicidal' mom.</p>
<p>What I really want to know is will adcoms be lenient with a dip in junior year first semester (my grades went back up after I sorted out most of the problems)? What I've heard from adcoms and current students in the Ivy League schools are: yes, adcoms will take context into mind. Just make sure you don't whine and play this well so it looks like you really improved as a person.</p>
<p>And calc bc ap score TT____TT (my course rigor has been the toughest in my school for the last 3 years and will be for senior year as well)</p>
<p>^Yes, and various assorted Ivies on the Chances thread. Crimsonuser, are you in need for additional input from others? This is a more elaborate version of a “bump”…</p>
<p>I think you have great stats, especially with the research aspect; a lot of asians are good at math and science, but very few people are nationally published, especially in high school.</p>
<p>^Actually, I’m good at math but I guess from the BC score, you can presume so…(the testing day was NOT a good day for me lol)</p>
<p>and i don’t think math has much to do with biological sciences anyways…more for chem/physics.</p>
<p>but i’ve heard ap scores can help but not hurt and ap scores are factored in just a tiny bit in admissions as well as bad ap scores can kill you…what’s true?</p>
<p>The truth is, how much ap scores factor into admissions is not deterministic. It is a stochastic process, much like what you would expect from a mutagenic virus which is used to infect bacterial cells at an MOI of 1.5, which can be modeled as a Poisson process, which means that the probability of there being zero virus present within a given cell in the sample is (e^-1.5*(1.5)^x)/x! | x = 0. And of course the virus is mutagenic so it raises the probability of mutation for each single base pair to mu<em>0+deltaMu, where mu</em>0 is the original rate of mutation in the bacterial organism (typically an exponential function of time) and deltaMu is the increase in mutation rate as a result of the virus, which we can also assume is a logarithmic function with respect to the quantity of virus present. So if 10 separate research centers, each located an equal radial distance from Princeton, NJ, have been doing research on this virus, and each has a chance (dependent on time, of course) of releasing the virus into the native bacterial environment, there is some nontrivial probability that the bacterial genome mutating virus will get into the native environment of any bacteria of interest.</p>
<p>So if a certain disease causing bacteria has a genome of 10 million base pairs, and the gene critical to the targeting mechanism of a newly discovered vaccine is .5Mbp in length, what is the expected amount of time until a species of bacteria will become sufficiently mutated so as to make the aforementioned newly discovered vaccine completely useless? During that time, how many lives would be saved by the vaccine (Assume the population of the earth is a continuous function increasing exponentially with respect to time, and take the integral. A Taylor approximation may be useful)?</p>
<p>Yup math has nothing to do with the biological sciences, and is completely irrelevant to your area of research.</p>
<p>By the way, if you can figure out the above problem, I’m sure you can figure out just how much your ap scores will hurt you in the application process.</p>
<p>Most of the stuff that you spit at me above aren’t biological sciences. Granted, they are pertaining to science but in a skewed way. (it’s more statistics than biological sciences. labs have researchers who do science and statisticians who do math. very different area of major and studies)…Also, did you realize you’re talking about bacteriophage when I’m talking about just bacterial infections? if we’re dealing with viruses then we don’t need to create vaccines that target bacteria. (yeah, yeah. I know. I don’t know much of the stuff you list out in depth but you’re graduating Princeton in 2012 and I’m still in high school. lol)</p>
<p>And I said math doesn’t have MUCH to do with biological sciences, not completely irrelevant. Actually, you’re correct, math has NOTHING to do with my current research field. And don’t insult me and my research. It’s very childish. And just so you know, our vaccine research has taken into account all that you’ve said…and chose to target genes that won’t be subject to that situation you describe above (gene hasn’t changed in over 10 years). The genes may change very gradually in a very long time but what we’ve observed so far shows no mutation yet. So I can safely assume that we’ll avoid aforementioned situation.</p>
<p>I don’t want to argue anymore about this, since this is only a chance thread. So please ■■■■, ■■■■■. (And don’t argue about me calling you a ■■■■■. In my opinion, you ARE creating trouble here since you’re stimulating me to argue back. So let’s stop) Unless you stop being one and give me actual answers. Apparently, my brain isn’t sophisticated enough for you.</p>
<p>I was far from insulting “your” research (though I’m sure the research mostly belongs to the people you work for, since it is their intelligence that went into the research, not yours). In fact, I was trying to demonstrate that mathematics will greatly expand upon your knowledge of the natural world, and to ignore math simply because it’s too hard and therefore couldn’t possibly be useful for you is a very very ignorant thing to do. You simply can’t do that as a scientist.</p>
<p>You have much to learn about the world of science, both in terms of actual science and in terms of how laboratories are set up (hint, most of the best scientists are inherently statisticians). I’ll forgive you because you are, as you admit, young and naive, but you really need to open your mind, especially if you are going to make it in the world of science.</p>
<p>If your research pertains to vaccines, then most likely it is linked to virology (which it’s not - directly), microbiology, and epidemiology, even if not to zeroth order. To claim that there is NOTHING mathematical about it (and indeed so intently) is to be extraordinarily ignorant. Please, for your own sake, ask the grad students/postdocs/PI of your lab if math has any role at all in their studies, and then reassess your statements to me.</p>
<p>There is a lot wrong scientifically with what you’ve claimed, but seeing as how I’m not an expert in the field, I won’t take the time to dissect all of it. But I will say that you have a fundamentally incorrect understanding of Darwinian evolution if you think the gene hasn’t changed at all in forever.</p>
<p>Again, I’m not trying to insult you. As a scientist I think that’s not useful. But I’d like for you to realize that there is much to learn, and that everything can be beneficial to you, as long as you take the brainpower to actually think about it - and that includes constructive criticism.</p>
<p>The research I’ve published that justifies the beginning of the vaccine research that I’m participating is mine. (first author) and as of now, I’m the only one working on the vaccine project in the lab as the postdocs/PI/technician/lab manager are busy with something else (aka their own individual projects). I read the pertinent literature and I come up with the protocols. I use my own solutions/samples, and I sequence/order my own stuff. So let me edit that last post: Please don’t insult ME. You might not think normal high school students have that capability but some do. So don’t be a snobby know-it-all. (sorry if I’m insulting you)
You’re right. I’m not ignoring math but I just wrote what I did because I wasn’t sure how much that ‘math’ part would affect me in admissions. Thanks for that.</p>
<p>Please prove your second paragraph.</p>
<p>Yes, yes. My (our) research is linked to microbiology and epidemiology (I never said it wasn’t. If I’m assisting in developing a vaccine for a bacterial disease/infection, I thought it would be GIVEN that the research is related to microbiology and epidemiology) but not virology. You forgot to mention bacteriology, which is NOT virology. I forgive you about the mix-up because you yourself said that you’re not an expert in the field (although I’m not either, yet.). And yes, you’re probably right but I haven’t hit math yet in the project and most likely, none of the postdocs who will work on this with me later won’t either other than playing with measurements/numbers/band sizes etc. because we have an outside statistician to play with complex numbers (and statistics, hence the name of the job) and we continue the research from what he gives us. (But yes, I do know math does play a part in biology, just not so much as in chem/physics and enough to affect my admissions chances critically) Forgive me, I’m sleepy right now.</p>
<p><em>sigh</em> 10 years is NOT forever. Since our research has been shown that since the time that my PI has discovered this bacteria with her peers, the genes that the vaccine will be targeting have not changed for a long time (my previous research identifies the genes that change and do not change thus enabling us to go through with the project), it will be safe to target the specific genes. Never once in my post did I mention forever. I said very gradually in a long period of time. And if you assume that vaccines could be rendered to quickly then what’s the use of creating one and applying it to people?</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it. But, again, don’t criticize how I use my own brainpower. You’re being overly petty for a “mature” college student who forgives high school students because they’re “young and naive.” I get your point and I appreciate it.</p>
<p>And now, please do me a favor and not post on here again unless you have the answers to my previous questions.</p>
<p>See? Now I like you.
You are respectful (after the fact, anyway) yet very firm and adamant. I’d say those are pretty good qualities, regardless of whether you end up going to Princeton or not.</p>
<p>But seriously, there’s nothing useful you’ll get out of a chances thread other than specific discussion such as that which I provided. Would you have preferred something like “You have a great chance!” which tells you absolutely nothing?</p>
<p>Yup, I definitely get what you’re saying. I was a bit roused up because…as you can see it was 1:43 am and I was finishing up a report hahaha. Hmm. You’re absolutely correct…it’s just that it’s nearing time for applications and I have tons of stuff to do…thanks!</p>
