Chances for an international competition winner?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I will GREATLY appreciate it if you take a look at my stats and give me some input. :></p>

<p>Chinese American Male, Virginia
GPA: 3.61 UW, 4.05 W, 4.40 UC GPA
Rank: 28/452
School: Public school, but I'm in the IB program taking 5 Higher Level's and 2 Standard's. All I've taken these past few years are AP/IB classes and I'm taking 9 exams in the spring this year :s Sends <10 students a year to big-name schools, most of IB kids go to UVA/VT
College-level: I took classes at Cornell Summer College this summer and got A-'s in both Calculus and a 2nd-tier (2110-level) Computer Science (data structures) course</p>

<p>SAT: R: 690, M: 720, W: 670, Total: 2080, R+M: 1410
SATII: Math II: 770, Chem: 680 (hopefully above 700 come october), Lit: 660 (again hopefully above 700)</p>

<p>AP's:
CS A: 5, Chem: 5, Gov't: 5, English Lang: 4, Latin Lit: 4, Latin Vergil: 3</p>

<p>IB:
Math SL: 7</p>

<p>Senior classes: IB Comp. Sci. HL, IB History HL, IB English HL, IB Music HL, IB Chem HL, IB Latin SL, IB TOK II, AP Calc AB, AP Physics B (i'm taking 9/8 classes allowed at my school... if that means anything. i'm doing physics online)</p>

<p>Awards:
- Part of 1st place winning team of ThinkQuest International, where teams compete to build websites. Won an all-paid trip to San Francisco, a laptop, ate dinner with Oracle's CFO. Hows this for a hook? I'm really hope this is what pushes me over the edge for some of the places I'm applying to.
- 1st/2nd place for two years at local Great Computer Challenge music division
- 1st place in local piano scholarship award, 3rd place in regional
- Various piano awards over the years, including Paderwerski medal (pretty much just saying that i've done 10+ years of piano)</p>

<p>EC's:
- President of my Music Club at a private music studio i go to
- President and co-founder of a local "Organization of Chinese Americans Youth Club"
- Treasurer of Math Honor Society
- Since last year I've been teaching 1-hour music theory lessons every weekend to young kids at the music studio i mentioned
- Membership in NHS, Science Honor Society, Latin Honor Society, Science Bowl team, Interact Club, others</p>

<p>I'm applying to the Engineering schools at these colleges and gonna major in Computer Science or EECS if available:
Stanford (EA)
Berkeley
MIT
CMU
Cornell
Columbia
UIUC
UMich
William and Mary
VTech
UVA</p>

<p>Again thanks for the input!</p>

2

<p>You should know that it is essentially impossible to have a 4.40 UC GPA even if you had a 4.0 GPA UW during your sophomore and junior year.</p>

<p>I believe you probably made a common mistake, which is to count more than 4 year long classes as honors classes. </p>

<p>See this website and look under the section entitled "Honors Courses" for more information on this.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/paths_to_adm/freshman/scholarship_reqs.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/paths_to_adm/freshman/scholarship_reqs.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Also, it is important to know what your UW GPA is during your sophomore and junior years in order to compute your chances at Stanford (which doesn't consider freshman grades).</p>

<p>I'm guessing your GPA is around 3.8 UW for the sophomore and junior years, and you have a 4.1 UC GPA, so I'll use this in computing your classes for Stanford and UC Berkeley.</p>

<p>Stanford (EA)--Reach
UC Berkeley--Slight Reach
MIT--Reach
CMU--Match
Cornell--Match to Slight Reach
Columbia--Reach
UIUC--Match
UMich--Match
William and Mary--Match
VTech--Safety to Safe Match
UVA--Safe Match</p>

<p>Generally, the Ivies only take those who rank in the top 3% at their high schools. Your IB courses, good grades in these tougher courses, and academic awards give you chances which most people with your rank wouldn't have at the Ivies, but you need to realize that this will only get you into the lower Ivies or into the next level down schools--translation: competition gets really tough at this level.</p>

<p>I wish you well, but please realize this going in, and make your essays and applications reflect your accomplishments, but not overstate them (in other words, having dinner with the Oracle CFO is nice--but it is not going to do anything as far as helping you get into a top school.) What is important is what you learned in doing the work to win the award, not the reward you got for winning. Make sure you understand that (which I think you do)--and make sure admissions commitees understand that you know that. Then you'll have better chances at all of your schools. </p>

<p>You have won some major awards--and done some great volunteer work--so don't spoil it by inadvertently coming across as someone who thinks they are "entitled" to an acceptance. Rather, discuss that your acceptance is the first step in your road to accomplishing something that helps others, and not just helps you in terms of a wealthy career or fame. I think that's what I see in you--and you need to help the admissions commitees at these schools see it too.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

3

<p>Is that rank weighted or unweighted? Basically agree with ^Calcruzer's reasoning. MIT and Stanford are going to be reaches for anyone, unless they have cured cancer (or similar) or (in the case of Stanford) an athletic admit.</p>

4

<p>Stanford (EA)-- reach
Berkeley-- match
MIT-- reach
CMU-- in
Cornell-- reach
Columbia-- high match
UIUC-- in
UMich-- match
William and Mary-- match
VTech-- in
UVA-- high match</p>

5

<p>Well I didn't think that a 4.40 W UC GPA was too ridiculous because on Cal's admissions page it says the average weighted GPA for incoming freshmen is 4.35. I used the "no more than eight honors-level/AP courses" restriction and got a 4.40.</p>

<p>And thanks for the advice, I don't think I'm too pretentious in my essays, I have two drafts so far and they both show reflections about what I've done - something I heard they like.</p>

<p>Anybody else care to chance?</p>

6

<p>since when did columbia become a match?</p>

7

<p>your SATs and GPA are on the low side. EC's about average for an asian male. And although your one big award will set you apart your UW GPA is quite low for some of these schools.</p>

<p>Stanford (EA)-- high reach
Berkeley(OOS) -- reach
MIT-- reach
CMU-- match
Cornell-- high match
Columbia-- reach</p>