Hi, this is a bit early, but I’d like to know my chances at the above schools.
[ b]Objective:**
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[ *] SAT I (breakdown): N/A
[ *] ACT (breakdown): 35 (34 M 36 R 36 E 34 S)
[ *] SAT II: 770 Math II, 780 US History, 800 Spanish, 800 Chemistry
[ *] Unweighted GPA: 3.865
[ *] Weighted GPA: 4.30 (4.42 at end of senior year)
[ *] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): School doesn’t rank, but definitely in top 12.5%.
[ *] AP (place score in parenthesis): Physics B (4), Spanish Language (5), US History (4) Calc AB (4) Chemistry (5)
[ *] IB (place score in parenthesis): N/A
[ *] Senior Year Course Load: AP Psych, AP English Lang, AP Calc BC, AP Spanish Lit, AP Comp Sci
[ *] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): ?
[/list]
[ b]Subjective:**
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[ *] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): CEO of my own app company, developer of one the most successful apps in the world (top 10 in over 80 countries), varsity Volleyball, varsity basketball, president of app club, president of the Medicine Club. Taekwondo black belt, working with venture capitalists in the app field, etc.
[ *] Job/Work Experience: Over 500 hours interning for various physicians
[ *] Volunteer/Community service: Almost 340 hours teaching English abroad in 3rd world countries, cancer research.
[ *] Summer Activities: Volunteering abroad, app developing, app conferences, computer science lectures, interning, research, etc. Did a case study on curing pediatric cancer one summer, the next I traveled around the world for my app, this summer I will do so more volunteer work and more app stuff.
[ *] Essays: N/A
[ *] Teacher Recommendation: N/A
[ *] Counselor Rec: N/A
[ *] Additional Rec: N/A
[ *] Interview: N/A
[ *] Supplementary Material (portfolio, etc.): N/A
[/list]
[ b]Other**
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[ *] Applied for Financial Aid?:
[ *] State (if domestic applicant): NY
[ *] Country (if international applicant): USA
[ *] School Type: Extremely competitive private school
[ *] Ethnicity: Chinese
[ *] Gender: M
[ *] Income Bracket: 250,000+
[ *] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): N/A
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Most of your ECs are REALLY rich kid activities… travelling abroad and teaching English and travelled the world for a summer… possibly money/connections hooking you up with internships etc. yea.
Whether you did it most people sill assume you have top notch college coaching e.g. test prep and essay helpetc as well as top notch tutoring because of that income bracket. Being an Asian applicant your scores are expected.
Are you a junior or a senior? You have quiet a few AP scores if you’re just a junior, otherwise you’re just on track. GPA is a bit low but it is a school that is well known for being competitive you should be fine.
In my opinion, Cornell, Brown, UCB, and UCLA are high matches/low reaches while Stanford, Columbia, MIT are mid reaches.
I’m a senior. Yes our school is in the top 20 in NY. Extremely competitive, and very well known for it. Top 25 percent of the class goes to top 10 schools yearly. Also yes I agree my activities are not very altruistic. Do you recommend doing some charity work or something similar?
@appgodxoxo Wow. Yeah you definitely fit the classification of sheltered rich kid who has had the silver spoon since day 1. It shows what kind of person you are when you are willing to just do charity for that extra bump on your college apps or even the thought that doing such an activity would seal the deal. Very sad. In regards to your chances, I repeat pretty much everything @YoungShoppah has said. GPA is average, ACTs are expected, ECs are expected from your income class and not that outstanding, but you go to a top 20 (probably 60k/year) private school in NYC so I’m sure you’ll shamelessly get in just from the name brand alone of the school.
Yeah wow; he asked for his chances to a couple of schools, not a thread to make him feel guilty of his privileges.
My opinion is that parts of your application do read like you were following a ‘college admissions checklist,’ but there’s also plenty of things I can see you were actually passionate about. I will say this: creating a top 10 application, probably corresponding to tens of millions of downloads, is NOT an ‘expected’ extracurricular as debe3445 says. I’d be surprised if more than nine other people could claim to have that ; )
I think you have a great shot at all of the schools above. Two out of three checkboxes are filled: 1) Grades 2) Standardized test scores. But for #3) extracurriculars I’m a bit confused.
I see that you have done a lot of impressive work regarding app development. This is indeed extraordinary. However I also see that you have volunteered a lot in medicine. So when reading your application I’m a bit confused whether your ultimate goal is ‘pre-med’ or ‘compsci/engineering’. Which is it?
Make it easier for the reader to connect the dots.
@sgopal I agree with you 100%. That’s the biggest criticism my college counselors give. To be honest I am probably equally passionate about both. I can’t really decide. Big problem of mine. I think I’d like to do comp sci/ economics though.
@itshydro I’ve heard the same. I like that Stanford is holistic because my GPA isn’t too great. My GPA is a 4.38 which is what I applied to those schools with.
@debe3445 Not entirely sure why you’re so critical. Should people in a certain income bracket just not apply to college because it’s unfair?
Comments seem sort of hateful and more jealousy-derived than anything to be honest. You have a stellar application. The unweighted and weighted GPAs are fairly middle of the pack for these schools’ applicant pools, and you’re lacking in demographic hooks (ethnic, socieconomic, regional) but those are the only downsides I can see, and, as far as I’m concerned, everything else vastly outweighs those aspects of your profile. Congrats on the hard work! Hope it pays off. We all know full and well the crap shoots that are MIT and Stanford admissions, but you’ve done all you can to give yourself the best possible shot. You have an undeniably strong chance at the other schools, but again, you never know. Good luck.
@ahawkins yes I agree my GPA isn’t too great. it’s a 3.9 UW, 4.38 weighted as of the end of my first semester of this senior year. I had a really bad freshman year (3.62 & 3.93) but really pulled my weight Soph/Jr/Sr year. i never got below a 4.5 a semester after freshman year. I think my course rigor (10 APs total) might make up for that. do you guys think my gpa will end up screwing me over for Brown, Cornell, UCB and UCLA?
You are very strong for CAL and UCLA. Brown and Cornell, while you are certainly qualified, are competitive for everyone–thus, I say you will get in one of the two.
@appgodxoxo Hey but don’t worry if you don’t get into Stanford or MIT. I have a friend who is a developer as well who had 15 apps on the App Store (all very successful) before he was 16 and still didn’t get in.
But he plans to go to Stanford or MIT in graduate school.