<p>Alright here's the deal, I visited Caltech last week and think its a really awesome place...my dad thinks I will be a "competitive" applicant but I think I will get blasted out of the water by the rest of the applicant pool. Since we both really don't know what we are talking about I figured I would come here and ask some people that are knowledgeable if I have what it takes to get into Caltech. </p>
<p>School: Public school in Northern California
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: White/Hispanic</p>
<p>GPA: 3.9 UW 4.2 W (not weighted until junior year)
Rank: ~10/430</p>
<p>SAT I: 2250 (CR 720 M 800 W 730)
SAT II: MathIIC - 800 Biology E - 740 Chem/Physics - ?
AP Exams: Calc AB - 5 Biology - 5 US History - 5 Language -4</p>
<p>9th Grade Courses: 3.8 GPA
- Lit 1 honors - B/B
- Wind Ensemble - A/A
- Geometry - A/A
- Health/Geography - A/A
- Physical Science - A/A
- Spanish 1 - A/A
- Marching Band - A/A</p>
<p>10th Grade Courses: 3.8 GPA
- Spanish 2 honors - A/A
- Wind Ensemble - A/A
- Biology - A/A
- Lit 2 honors - B/B
- Algebra 2 honors - A/A
- World History - A/A
- Marching Band - A/A</p>
<p>11th Grade Courses: 4.8 GPA
- Chemistry Honors - A/A
- Spanish 3 - A/A
- AP US History - A/A
- AP Biology - A/A
- AP Calc AB - A/A
- AP Language - A/A</p>
<p>12th Grade Courses:
- AP Chemistry
- AP Art History
- AP Government/Economics
- AP Calc BC
- AP Literature
- Biotechnology</p>
<p>Summer Courses:
- EPGY Physics Mech and E&M</p>
<p>Awards and Honors:
-AP scholar with honor
-Two time American Invitational Mathematics Examination qualifier
-Four time principals honor roll
-Most outstanding musician award
-Two time California all-state wind symphony
-Two time All Northern California honor band - principal horn
-Two time All Solano Country honor band - principal horn
-All Northern California honor band scholarship
-Two time Interlochen Arts Camp honor camper</p>
<p>Extracurricular Activities:
- Wind Ensemble - principal horn, section leader
- Marching Band - section leader,
- Musical pit orchestra - lead horn
- Private horn lessons - 7 years
- Brass quintet - community service type gigs
- Young Peoples Symphony Orchestra
- ( Maybe San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra...audition in a couple of weeks)
- Interlochen Arts Camp - World Youth Wind Symphony (1st part), World Youth Symphony Orchestra, woodwind quintet, music theory, music literature
- Scuba Diving - Research Diver, Master Scuba Diver, Rescue Diver, Dive Master Candidate (cant become a professional, i.e.. instructor, until I am 18)
- Science Club - founder
- Aquatic conservation/Project AWARE
- Rock climbing - Volunteer at middle school rock wall
- Chess club
- Classical Piano - 12 years
- Jazz piano</p>
<p>Research:
- Analyzing data collected from buoys in the pacific ocean for a local prof. Planning on submitting a sample of it. </p>
<p>Work Experience:
- GIS (geographic information systems) internship - Basically involves making maps and doing field surveys </p>
<p>I would really appreciate any suggestions as far as things I could do to make my application better or things I could bring out or focus on to make it stand out more...thanks for reading this.</p>