Chances at Stanford EA, UCB, Rice, Brown, Duke, Pomona?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hi, I just want some chances... </p>

<p>Grades+Scores:
GPA:3.9 UW
PSAT: 236
SAT: 2290 730M 800CR 760W
SATIIs are pending (Physics/USH/MathIIC)
APs: AP Euro 5; rest are Pending (USH, Bio, Physics, CalcAB)</p>

<p>Notable classes 9-12:
Honors: Geometry, Alg2/Trig, Spanish
AP:Calc AB/BC, USH, Bio, Physics, Chem, Environmental, Computer Science, English.</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
Hospital Volunteering 200+ Hours
Summer Internships under various mentors (9, in the lab of Shinya Yamanaka with metabolism and stem cells, 10 in the lab of Lennart Mucke with Neurology, 11 Unsure yet).
Red Cross Club (9, 11, 12) elected treasurer and fundraising chair in 11
President of UNICEF club (11,12)
Science Club (9, 10, 11, 12)
Holiday's for the Homeless program 9-11 (raise money for 200 50$ survival backpacks for the homeless, wake up at 5 AM on Christmas to distribute)
Working at Kumon Tutoring Center 9-12
Tutored English at a foreign language program for kids in Chengdu, China 9
Piano ABRSM Level 7
Music Theory ABRSM Level 5</p>

<p>Taekwondo:
Nationals:
Gold 9 Junior Light
PAR 10 Junior Welter</p>

<p>Western Regionals:
Gold, 9 Junior Light</p>

<p>CA States:
Silver 9 Junior Light (Qualified for Nationals)
Bronze 10 Junior Welter (Qualified)
PAR 11 Senior Bantam (Qualified)</p>

<p>Nevada States:
Silver 11 Senior Fly (Qualified)</p>

<p>1st Dan Black Belt</p>

<p>Teacher RECs:
I think one will be stellar, the other will be good.
Won an underclass man award for spanish in 10th grade (basically a teacher picks their favorite student)</p>

2

<p>Also, is it clear that my passion is for medicine, helping others, and Taekwondo?</p>

3

<p>Hmm…</p>

4

<p>please chance me for at least Stanford and UCB! :frowning: </p>

<p>I live close to UCB but Stanford is my dream school (hopefully I can make it reality. </p>

<p>I’m retaking my SAT to TRY to get an 800 in writing and math for a 2400 super score.</p>

5

<p>I think u’'ll do fine. You will probably get into UCB (assuming you are not applying for CoE), but remember, Stanford is a reach for everyone - you will probably get in.</p>

6

<p>Good shot at UCB and Pomona.
Others a longshot for anybody, you included.</p>

7

<p>Lol. I have NO idea why you’d retake that SAT. Unless you want schools to think you’re a solely grade and score focused individual. Getting a 2400 super score will literally make NO. DIFFERENCE. NONE. Zilch. Nada.
Past a 33 and 2220 on ACT and SAT respectively, ad coms tend not to care. For many, these tests aren’t an accurate representation of their ability. What is far more important are

  1. your grades
  2. your teacher recommendations. I can’t stress enough how important they are.
  3. How you present your in activities and essays</p>
8

<p>@noel597‌ where did you get the numbers for the SAT and ACT cutoff line? Just curious :stuck_out_tongue: Are they the same for Ivy and Ivy-like schools? Thank you!</p>

9

<p>Thanks for finally chancing me… </p>

<p>I would be content with UCB to be honest, as I don’t feel like going out of California (unless it’s Texas to be join a TKD club there and to be with my cuzzos).</p>

<p>Stanford would literally make me- idk, I just would be so happy, I can’t even imagine…</p>

10

<p>@noel597 it’s quite…foolish…to say that a higher test score has absolutely no affect is silly; a 2400 requires far more reasoning ability than a 2200 does.</p>

<p>There is no imaginary cutoff, just think of it as such: the benefits, although present, of scoring higher diminish as the score increases past 2200-2300 or so.</p>

11

<p>@foolish a super scored 2400 is different from a 2400 at one sitting. What I am saying is that students shouldn’t retake their SAT I after a 2290 (unless one section is very low). My Aunt is an admissions officer at a top 20 school, and she has told me (and I have read MANY places) that taking a test again after such a high score looks obsessive and that a score is NOT enough to push a student “in”. </p>

<p>I simply think time is better spent on other things (not racking 50 extra points on the SAT)…</p>

<p>Also, the SAT is not an accurate measure of reasoning ability. I, for the life of me, could NEVER get a 2290 on the SAT, and I got into every school I applied to (except for Columbia <em>sigh</em>) and will be attending UPenn in the fall. Y’all have to lose the mindset that scores are everything.</p>

<p>@orangemaple I was told this by my aunt who is an admissions officer at a top 20 school in the US. If you have excellent grades, teacher recs, activities, etc., these scores are what you need to render you “competitive”. If you notice, a 33 will place you, usually, at the 50th percentile for most competitive schools, and at the 75th percentile for 20-30 schools. She has told me that other things are far more important. For example, people don’t realize just how heavily teacher recommendations are weighted!</p>

<p>@StanfordWOW , I also know that schools make distinctions between A’s and A-'s (except for the UC’s). Does your GPA take -'s into account?</p>

12

<p>I, myself, scored a 34 on the ACT. (34M and E, 33 S and R-- a low, rounded 34!). This didn’t hold me back at all.</p>

<p>My friend scored a 33 on the ACT (34 E, 33 S and R and M), and she got into most of the schools I got into (granted, we applied to different schools, but for the schools that we both applied to-- Pomona, UPenn, Emory, Rice, Amherst-- we were accepted by all)</p>

<p>I just want to encourage you to spend your time doing something meaningful. To spend time slaving over the SAT is foolish.</p>

13

<p>“Also, the SAT is not an accurate measure of reasoning ability. I, for the life of me, could NEVER get a 2290 on the SAT, and I got into every school I applied to (except for Columbia <em>sigh</em>) and will be attending UPenn in the fall. Y’all have to lose the mindset that scores are everything.”</p>

<p>Your acceptance has nothing to do with reasoning ability. And a 34 is comparable to a 2290 anyway…</p>

14

<p>Exactly! So why would he/she need to retake?</p>

<p>I just don’t think that scores are that important.</p>

15

<p>I sat down and calculated my true GPAs
UC came down to 3.94
Including -'s (I was told +'s don’t count for anything) my GPA was 3.88.
Does this change things a lot? I can change the 3.88 to a 3.91 most likely. Some of my teachers would be willing to round my -'s to regular A’s.</p>

16

<p>^ also those GPAs don’t count senior year. Does EA require 1st semester senior year?</p>

17

<p>This is purely anecdotal, but one of the seniors at my school retook a 2390 sat to get a 2400 and got into yale harvard and MIT (roughly half the top schools she applied to, didn’t get into princeton columbia or stanford, might not have spent that much time on those application). Granted she had exceptional EC’s and a 4.0gpa as well. I do think there’s some measure of bias against a sub-2300 score especially for asian students who are held to higher standards. College admissions are straight-forward, a lot of it depends upon just first glance look and reactions and seeing 22__ instead of 23__ might have a pyschological effect on how they view your application. </p>

18

<p>I still think that SAT and ACT aren’t things that can keep someone out of a school. A kid in my class right now had a 2280 SAT and got into Yale. Should he have retaken that SAT rather than focusing on creating our school’s first robotics team?</p>

19

<p>@noel597‌ Thank you! So I have a 2220 SAT and a 33 ACT, am I good in the standardized testing category? Thinking of applying to UCB and UIUC and U Chicago and CMU, should my scores be academically sufficient? </p>

20

<p>Most schools don’t have 1st semester grades ready in time to be evaluated in EA, so it’s not required.</p>

<p>UC Berkeley is a match, Rice is a low reach, all the others are high reaches.
I feel like top-tier schools really look for interesting candidates with compelling stories while you come across pretty “blah” here, to be frank…BUT if you can write and express yourself really well in your application, I’d say Stanford might like you (they do go for some sporty, athletic, well-rounded types, I’ve noticed). </p>