<p>I am a senior in high school in Colorado (which doesn't really have any schools that meet my expectations for college). In the coming months, I'm going to be applying to:
UC Berkeley
UCLA
UCSD
UCSB (possibly)
Columbia
Duke
Georgia Tech
Johns Hopkins
MIT
UT Austin
UVA
U of Washington
Princeton</p>
<p>I don't really expect to get in to MIT, Princeton, Columbia, or Duke, but I'm going to apply anyway. Berkeley is my number one choice, probably followed by UCSD, and I'm most strongly considering studying some kind of engineering (maybe biomed). So here are my stats:</p>
<p>GPA: 4.0 unweighted, 4.167 weighted (which should go up dramatically after this semester with 4 AP's)
Class Rank: 5/404 (probably 1/404 by the end of the semester)
ACT: 34 (36 Math, 36 English, 34 Reading, 31 Science), took it again and got a 33 science, so my superscore is about 35.
SAT: 2070 (710 M, 730 CW, 650 CR)... probably not going to submit this anywhere
SAT II: 770 Math II, 740 Chemistry, 710 Physics
AP: I've taken 3 so far (English Lang./Comp., APUSH, World History). I got 5's on WH and English and a 4 on APUSH. Currently I am taking AP Chem, AP Lit/Comp, AP Comparative Politics/Microeconomics, and Calc. BC.</p>
<p>My course load all of high school has been the hardest classes that are offered to me, even though my school isn't really very competitive, and we don't really have a ton of options for classes to take because it's a relatively new school.</p>
<p>My EC's aren't that great:
Tennis for 3 years, varsity for 2
NHS Vice-President
Participant in Warm Heart of Africa club, which helps give scholarships to a few kids in Malawi each year.
Mentor in the Mustang Mentor Program, which helps incoming freshmen adjust to high school.
I've done around 60 hours of community service, mostly as a requirement for NHS.
I loooove visual art, like painting and drawing, and I've been told that I'm really good at it, so I'm going to try to send a portfolio with my applications because I think it will make me somewhat unique.
Participated in band for a tiny, tiny bit.
Also, I like snowboarding. :)</p>
<p>My recommendations I think are going to be really good because my counselor and my teachers are extremely fond of me. My essays should be pretty good. I'm a very good writer compared to most of the people in my school. One of my essays is about my love of whistling, which I HOPE makes me stand out.</p>
<p>So, I guess, what do you think my chances are? I really want to learn what people think on here because everyone else I talk to seems to think I have a 100% chance of going wherever I want to, but it's mostly because my school isn't competitive and there aren't really many people like me. I know I have no interesting EC's. I'm really depending on visual arts to make me stand out because, from what I hear, it's not a very common thing that comes with applications. Also, I'm hoping that one of those schools is an adequate safety. Please chance me! Thanks!</p>
<p>EDIT: Also, I forgot to say, I'm a white male with divorced parents. One of my parents makes 6 figures I think, but the other makes probably ~50k a year on a government salary. How would that affect financial aid? We really, really cannot afford to pay for some of these 50k a year schools without some help.</p>