<p>CHANCE ME PLEASE! Any help is greatly appreciated. </p>
<p>Hispanic male from PA. Upper-middle class income. Biomed/premed/astrophysics focus.</p>
<p>My top schools are:
- Johns Hopkins
- U Penn
- Princeton
- Drexel
- Villanova
-Lehigh
- Brown
- MIT
- Temple
- Boston College</p>
<p>Test Scores
- PSAT (10th grade): 189
o CR: 61
o M: 64
o W: 64
- Don’t know about 11th grade PSAT results yet
- SAT: 2110 (probably won’t send unless I have to)
o CR: 670
o M: 680
o W: 760
- ACT: 34 Composite
o English: 33
o Math: 32
o Reading: 35
o Science: 35
- SAT II: Projected to take Physics, Math I, and US History</p>
<p>Schedule (Cumulative GPA: 4.227)
- 9th Grade (UW 3.88)
o H Enviro Science
o H Geometry
o H English 9
o H US History
- 10th Grade (UW 4.0, W 4.13)
o H Bio
o H Chem
o H English 10
o H Modern World History
o H Spanish III
o H Pre-Calc
- 11th Grade (UW 3.88, W 4.48)
o AP Lang
o AP Physics NM
o AP USH
o AP Calc AB
o Honors Spanish IV
- 12th Grade
o AP Bio
o AP Lit
o AP Spanish
o AP Physics E/M
o AP Calc BC</p>
<p>Extracurriculars
- Soccer [200 hrs total]
- TopSoccer [15 hrs total]
o Buddy
- Key Club [50 hrs total]
-National Honor Society [20 hrs total]
- Robe Choir [25 hrs total]
- Piano [200 hrs total]
o Several recitals (nothing major)</p>
<p>Awards/Honors
- High Honor Roll (3.6+ GPA) all freshman year, Distinguished Honor Roll (4.0+ GPA) all sophomore and junior years
- Varsity soccer letter 11th and 12th grade
- NJHS inductee 9th grade, NHS inductee 11th and 12th grade
- Outstanding rank at states for choir (9th grade)</p>
<p>Your application is incredible. Your strengths are obvious (GPA, Ethnicity, ACT, soccer) so I’ll just list a few weaknesses you should be aware of:</p>
<ul>
<li>No math/science EC’s- Not sure if you listed all your activities, but you don’t seem to be part of any math or science clubs. Although your basic stats make you competitive, you need to have a lot of interest in your intended to be competitive at MIT, Princeton, or Brown. You’ve definitely invested time into some of your EC’s, but there’s not much about your activities that really indicates a strong interest in science. At MIT and Johns Hopkins (especially BME), an interest in science is extremely crucial.</li>
<li>No summer internship/job - Again, I don’t know if you forgot to list it, but you don’t seem to have any summer internships/jobs. A lot of pre-med applicants shadow a doctor over the summer or conduct biology research at a local university. The colleges that emphasize science, like MIT and Johns Hopkins, really want to see research. In fact, 85% of MIT undergrads do at least one research project before graduation. </li>
<li>Course Rigor - Were you only allowed to take AP’s after 10th grade? If so, your course rigor is fine. If not, your course-load will hurt you. Also, any reason why you didn’t take more math/science AP’s in junior year?</li>
</ul>
<p>Princeton, MIT - Impossible to predict for anyone.
UPenn, Brown - Mid Reach, but definitely possible given your primary strengths.
Johns Hopkins - Lower reach than above two but still a reach. The Johns Hopkins admissions committee really likes research.
The Rest - Essentially in. Very unlikely you’d get rejected from them. </p>
<p>First off, THANK YOU FateGoneAwry16! Your post was much appreciated! It was very insightful and I am glad you brought up some of the more glaring flaws in my application. To answer any questions you brought up (and others may have had as well):
I do participate in the Science Olympiad team at my school, but it hasn’t really begun yet so I did not want to include it. There is also a Physics Club at my school, but I do not know too much about it. I will definitely look into it now!
During the summers so far (I am a junior now), most of my time has been for soccer and travelling. I usually go to between 1 and 5 countries over the summer break, and soccer preseason makes things hectic as well. I am currently looking into research opportunities around me, as well as a few pre-college summer programs at universities.
At my school, there is only one AP offered before junior year: AP Euro. I did not take it because I was foolish at the time and thought it would be a good idea to take honors instead (it was pretty dumb looking back). So, my freshman, junior, and senior years will all be as rigorous as possible.
Any more opinions on my chances? I would love to hear what other people have to say!</p>
<p>You have a good chance at all the places you wan’t to go. Some of them are difficult to predict, since you have Johns hopkins as #1 I think you are competetive there.</p>
<p>Thanks guys! I appreciate the opinions.
Does anybody have any tips they can give me to make me “stand out” more? More opinions are greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>You’ll only send SAT scores “if you have to?” Dude you do have to. Your score of 2210 is great, don’t be afraid to send it. I think that jhu and upenn are stretches (they are for everybody, lol) but you have a sure shot at villanova and boston college</p>
<p>Wow, thanks bigman and fatherofm (again haha)!
I will definitely convey my personality through my essays, as I feel I am a competent writer. Hopefully the adcoms will be impressed too!
As for anybody else, I will chance you back! The more criticisms the better I guess!</p>
<p>@MarceloSanhez, only a tiny number of people have a 40-55% chance at MIT and Princeton. According to an MAA study, only 50% of USAMO qualifiers were accepted to MIT in the past few years. I know you mean well, but don’t over-inflate chances. Also, predicting MIT and Princeton (even Brown to an extent) is still impossible given their randomness. </p>
<p>To the OP, how do you know your junior GPA if you are currently a junior in HS? Also, the SAT Math I is completely useless because its really, really easy. Colleges won’t respect a Math I score, so just take the SAT Math II instead. Its one of the easiest SAT II’s and college will respect you more for taking it.</p>
<p>FateGoneAwry16 you’re probably right MIT and Princeton are impossible to predict and although i do believe awards and scores are important i think people here overestimate them, there is a reason why USAMO qualifiers and 2400’s are rejected from top schools and other applicants in the 2200 range and good grades are accepted everywhere they apply. What i’m trying to say is that prizes and standardized tests are not everything. Also i did my prediction based on the stats of friends of mine who were accepted to those schools, i didn’t mean to give him false hopes by any means, but you’re right i might very well be wrong :)</p>
<p>@FateGoneAwry the GPA is assuming I get As in all my classes except Physics NM, which I will probably get a B in. The rest of my classes are manageable and I am confident that I can keep them all at A-level. Also, I do plan on taking more SAT II and AP tests, but I only included the ones I am going to take junior year in the post. Next year, I will be taking 5 AP tests and SAT IIs for Math II and English Literature. (Looking back, I should not have included the Math I SAT II, since I will be taking Math II the next year…) I will not take the Math I SAT II this year.</p>
<p>@MarceloSanchez it’s fine! I did not honestly expect to have such high chances for MIT, Brown and Princeton. They are reaches for everybody, after all…!</p>
<p>Thanks for all the responses guys! Any other opinions would be great!</p>