<p>Ok so the way I like to go about these is first giving any concerns about I have about your application. Then, I give any general comments if any. Lastly, I comment on colleges. I may sound like a jerk, but I’d rather have you hate me than get denied.</p>
<p>-Thanks for not asking to get chanced for any EA and giving yourself enough time</p>
<p>-Colleges don’t care about your weighted GPA. In fact, you are expected to take the most rigorous classes at your school, so saying if you did that, or how close you came to doing that, would have been more helpful.</p>
<p>-Scores are OK. It may be hard to get your foot in the door for elite colleges.</p>
<p>-6% percentile for rank -> passes 10%, very nice.</p>
<p>-I have no clue what any of your awards are. If you gave those awards to me as an admission officer, I’d ignore them. They have no meaning unless if you give them.</p>
<p>-Why did you list honor roll first? Feel free to include it, but don’t have it come first. You are expected to have honor roll. Your first thing listed should be your highlighted award, whether you are posting it on college confidential or on your common app.</p>
<p>-I have no clue what CSF is, cerebral spinal fluid? Or California Scholarship program ;)? If the latter, which I hope it is, you need to say your involvement. If you were in it and considered for scholorships, cool stuff, but if you had further involvement you have to comment on that. I need to know, along with admission officers, how involved you are. Also, DO NOT USE ACRONYMS!</p>
<p>-I see no achievements within your ECs, which is fine… now for some general concerns, which I have for most people on this site.</p>
<p>-ECs: You have some cool ECs, but I don’t see any passion. Colleges don’t want to think you will just join random clubs at their school; they want to see what specifically you will bring. Thus you need to list and expand on the activities in an order and way that I can see what your focus is. For example, my focus is math research and engineering. I did research through a university, I gave a presentation at a university, submitted the paper to be published, I am involved in an international robotics competition, I tutor elementary engineering teams, and I am involved in math team. You see a clear theme. Yours might not be good as good (not trying to sound arrogant, it may be better), but either way it is ok. You need to find what will be your focus, which will be the thing you will tell colleges that you will bring to their school. And then make your resume around that focus, and then add things after the focus that you do for fun, which would be any ECs that don’t relate to the focus. Try hard to do this, it will help.</p>
<p>-Your Essay: Do not write an essay about your Pacific American Volunteer Association. Admission Officers read 193292319132 volunteer essays a year. If you insist, write about 1 person, or 1 event, that influenced you, but don’t even talk about the volunteering until the end of the essay. Colleges want to know that you can judge yourself and be realistic, change to reduce faults, and then what you can bring to the college. If you include these, you will be good.</p>
<p>Now for the colleges, I recommend taking off Upenn and NYU. NYU has horrible financial aid, which you would greatly benefit receiving from your school. Upenn is simply too much of a reach and has two supplement essays, which would take valuable time from other essays for more reachable schools.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about the UCs. I don’t think I can actually help you much when it comes to chancing you. But that isn’t what college confidential should be all about. You should see what I told you to try to focus on, make those changes, and then apply to the schools you like. Yes, your SAT will drag you down, but that is OK. You will end up in a great place if you do your research. </p>
<p>Best of luck pal.</p>