Chance this junior for Harvard

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>....... just kidding.</p>

<p>Pretty competitive public school in US: Ranked high because of the courses it offers, not necessarily because of how well the students score .</p>

<p>Rank: 1-2 /430</p>

<p>GPA: My school's GPA system isn't out of a 4.0, and I don't know how to convert my GPA. If I calculate it using a proportion, it comes out to be 3.96/4.0</p>

<p>Unweighted Average ~97 </p>

<p>Didn't take any AP's freshman or sophomore year.</p>

<p>AP Classes: Chem, English, USH </p>

<p>Likely Senior Year AP's: Calc BC, Bio, Physics C, English, Gov, Spanish or Econ, (Psych maybe) </p>

<p>SAT I: 1530/2330 (Took in October) </p>

<p>PSAT: 206 (Took after the SAT I... was pretty sick(literally) and bombed chance at NMSF. Does it look bad that I did worse on this even though I took it after the SAT I?)</p>

<p>SAT II's: Planning on taking Math II, US History, Chem, Maybe Physics. ( Pretty confident that I will do well in all of these, but this is pure speculation.)</p>

<p>EC's</p>

<p>Volunteer Service: I have volunteered 50+ hours at a local nursing home and 150+ hours at a nearby hospital. It was fun, especially because of the amount of interaction I had with the patients. It wasn't an internship or anything though. I did things like transporting blood, running the gift shop, discharges etc. I didn't observe a surgery or anything like that.</p>

<p>Freshmen-Junior Mentoring(11): Pretty self-explanatory. I'm helping a freshman get through freshman year </p>

<p>Lincoln-Douglas Debate (9-11): Competed at JV and Varsity levels, have broken into elimination rounds a few times. Not at the elite level though (no TOC bid rounds, for those of you who know what that is)</p>

<p>State Level Debate (9-11): Qualified to the State Tournament. I'm not going to say anything here because everyone knows that state level debate is pretty meaningless. </p>

<p>Math Team: (11) We really didn't have a running team until this year, but we do have a lot of talented math students, so we've won some local awards. (I doubt that I will even mention this honestly)</p>

<p>Academic Team/ Quiz Bowl: (9-11) Co-founder: This is probably the area in which I have devoted the most amount of hours. I'm one of those people who loves reading random Wikipedia articles (hehe). Our team was non-existent until my freshmen year, so we've made giant strides up to this point. We qualified to nationals, so we'll see how well we can do there. This is definitely the area I'm the most passionate about. </p>

<p>Technology Challenge: (9-11) If you haven't noticed already, I'm a total nerd. So I'm more than eager to participate in this challenge(I don't want to say what it is specifically though). Basically, every year each school statewide is presented with some sort of goal that they have to accomplish. Whoever participates must build a mock-business, including marketing etc. (the activity isn't just for programmers, which is definitely a positive). It's really cool because at the end of the year we are scored in each of these different areas, and we can win awards for making video games. </p>

<p>Chance Me For:</p>

<p>Yale
Columbia
Rice
Emory
Stanford
UChicago</p>

<p>Am I aiming too high?</p>

2

<p>40 views and no replies? argh</p>

3

<p>Yale - reach
Columbia - reach
Rice - match
Emory - match
Stanford - reach
UChicago - low reach/high match, write good essays
Good luck, you have a shot.</p>

<p>Please help me out?
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/617625-please-give-advice-very-desperate-junior.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/617625-please-give-advice-very-desperate-junior.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

4

<p>Looking very good so far. I wish I had your stats junior year. Not really aiming high, but the Ivies/Stanford are pretty much a crapshoot. Score well on your SAT II's and you'll be good. The math/tech EC's will help you should you apply to some more scientific schools. (MIT, CalTech, ect.)</p>

5

<p>may want to look at Duke, Georgetown, William & Mary, Vanderbilt too. Very similar to schools on your list.</p>

6

<p>Colleges won't even see your PSAT score. Don't worry about it.
That said, all of the Ivies+Stanford are a reach for you, but not impossible. The others are matches as long as you have good essays.</p>

7

<p>137 views and 4 replies... now i know why people bump so often.</p>

8

<p>It looks solid. Keep up the good work.</p>

<p>Yale - crapshoot
Columbia - low reach/high match
Rice - match
Emory - match
Stanford - epic crapshoot
UChicago - match</p>

9

<p>Not everybody likes to chance people... But here is my 2 Cents</p>

<p>Your SAT is well in the range of most Ivy competitors. Senior Course load looks good. ECs look mediocre, and even you criticize your own ECs. Colleges need to see some passion and concentration in your ECs. Any sports? Any Jobs? You need something that stands out for Ivies, and please don't paint a picture of a nerd on your applications!</p>

<p>So overall your academics are excellent, but then, so is an awful a lot of Ivy applicants. On the bright side, you are only a Junior, so the summer is a great time to fill in some gaps that you haven't closed. Maybe concentrate on one of your various interests. Do an internship. Do something that will give colleges a heads-up that you are spending your summers productively. And there is still plenty of time for leadership positions before you are a Senior.
Yale- Reach
Columbia- Low Reach
Rice-Match
Emory-Match
Stanford-Reach
UChicago-Low Reach
Harvard- Reach
You have good potentials for the Ivies, make the best of it!</p>

10

<p>Thanks for all the help so far everyone. I didn't mention this earlier, but do the leadership positions in my EC's mean anything? I am either currently captain/ future captain of every EC that I participate in.</p>

11

<p>If you went to nationals with Academic Bowl, and you are the captain, that definite shows leadership for a new club. Knowing that you show some leadership, I would have ranked you a bit better for your colleges. Just make sure you show the colleges in your essays that your leadership isn't just titular. Back up your leadership positions with some real, substantial anecdotes or achievements.</p>

<p>But overall, you have a few minor hooks and a great application (competitive for Ivies), and I wouldn't be surprised if an Ivy accepted you.</p>

12

<p>^Thanks a lot. Yeah, Academic Bowl is my true passion and I still can't believe how much our team changed from freshman year to now. I'll make sure to emphasize that on my application. I sort of omitted things about internships, jobs, and awards especially because I didn't see how having a job = a better applicant. Once again, thanks for all the help.</p>