Chances At A Few Good Universities

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I currently go to an extremely competitive high school in southern CA which sends double-digit numbers of students to HYPS and triple-digit numbers of students to Berkeley each year (out of a classes of about 600). Currently, I'm a junior.</p>

<p>Rank: probably 2nd decile (due to those non-honors freshmen courses taken at another school and a few Bs in some hard courses)
GPA: 4.4W / 3.7UW</p>

<p>SAT: 2080 (CR: 630, M: 800, W: 650) - will study and retake
ACT: 29 - will study and retake</p>

<p>SAT II's - predict a 800 on Math and Physics</p>

<p>Freshman year - a few courses with upperclassmen, but none honors as they aren't offered at my old school (which is a really sucky one), straight A's - Trig/Precalc, Spanish III, regular English, Physics, orchestra, regular History</p>

<p>Sophomore year - AP Calculus BC (took AB test - 5 / A), AP European History (3 / B+), Honors Biology (A), regular English (A+), P.E. (A), Health (A), Fundamentals of Programming (A+)</p>

<p>Junior year - Multivariable Calculus (took BC test - 5 estimated, B+), Intro to Linear Algebra (B+), AP US History (B+, 4 estimated), AP English Language (A- / B+, 4 estimated), AP Physics C (A+), AP Computer Science A (A+, 5 estimated), P.E. (A)</p>

<p>Plan to take the following senior year: AP Chemistry, AP English Literature, AP Government, AP Economics, AP Computer Science AB, Linear Algebra (at the college), AP Statistics, and maybe AP Biology</p>

<p>Because I was dealing with getting used to the environment and community during an interstate move, I did not bother with any real EC's (stuff I can write an essay on). However, in the upcoming summer, I plan to get involved with the development of various open source software projects, as well as do extensive website development for my school. In addition to that, I'll start a website development and management club at my school next year.</p>

<p>I'm a good essay writer and my recs are going to be excellent (in fact, some teachers even offered to write a rec for me without me even asking).</p>

<p>Awards:
None really =( - maybe the principal's honor roll if that means anything</p>

<p>What are my chances at the following:
MIT, Caltech, Berkeley, UCLA, Princeton, Harvard, and CSUF?</p>

<p>How will they increase if I raise my SAT and ACT scores to about 2250 and 34 respectively? I'm thinking that if I put a bit of effort during the summer, those scores should be a realistic goal.</p>

<p>Are there any other colleges I should consider if I plan on majoring in either Electrical Engineering or Math?</p>

2

<p>Second decile is gonna hurt you. And your socres BARELY put you in the middle fifty for Harvard, Princeto, MIT, and CalTech. And that's going to lower your chances. Your GPA is great. As is your dedication to software, coding, etc.</p>

<p>But are you going to be one of their top 10% of applicants? Nope. Are you even going to be the best applicant from your school? Maybe not.</p>

<p>And increase in scores would certainly help. But I'm not sure how reasonable that increase is going to be.</p>

<p>For any school that's not just a tech school, your CR and WR scores will push you into the no pile. At tech schools you'll be more competitive.</p>

<p>Look at Georgia Tech as a backup. And plenty of state schools have equally good engineering programs.</p>

<p>I really hope you add more schools to your list. Otherwise you may be very dissappointed come April.</p>

3

<p>Harvard and Princeton actually come below Berkeley and UCLA when it comes to choosing the right college for me. If that's the case, I wonder if I should remove them from the list.</p>

<p>I have MIT first choice, Caltech and Berkeley tied for second choice, and UCLA for third choice.</p>

<p>Clearly, there are a few applicants at my school that are better than me. In fact, one of my best friends is superior to me in almost every single aspect. The main idea is that my school is fairly well-known to the colleges.</p>

<p>I just know that there's a good number of people in the fourth decile at my school who get into Berkeley.</p>

4

<p>What school do you go to? I am from Cali too, but I didn't know any school in cali sends triple digit numbers of students to Berkeley.</p>

5

<p>You'll probably get into all of your Cali schools and none of the others.
Your best chance out of the others is probably MIT since they care about scores less than most elite schools.</p>

6

<p>I go to Troy High School of Fullerton, CA. It's ranked 28 in the most recent Newsweek, but those rankings are a joke.</p>