Hi, all!
I’m sort of worried about where I have a realistic chance of being accepted and which schools are worth me applying to at all. If you could provide some guidance to me on this, I would be so so grateful! 
My main concern is that, even though my standardized tests are high, my GPA/rank and extracurriculars aren’t that strong. Here’s my profile:
Citizenship: US Citizen
State: Texas
Class: Middle? My parents each usually earn around $150K a year but one parent unemployed for several years & the other unemployed for a significant part of the last year
Race: Asian
Gender: Female
School: Public, around 2,700 students. Only serves grades 11 and 12.
Within the top 1% of schools on Newsweek’s America’s Top High Schools Nationwide list. Quite a few students from last year’s graduating class went on to top tier schools.
Offers all the AP courses except 2 of them.
TESTING:
SAT: took twice
1st time: 1590; 790 Reading/800 Math/16 Essay
2nd time: 1580; 780 Reading/800 Math/22 Essay
SAT Subjects (2):
Math Level II: 780
World History: 770
ACT: 35; 36 English/35 Math/36 Reading/34 Science/12 Essay
AP Tests:
Human Geography: 5
World History: 5
European History: 5
U.S. History: 5
Chinese: 5
Spanish Language: 5
English Language: 5
Computer Science: 3
ACADEMICS:
GPA: 4.31.
Rank: 139 out of ~1400 (top 10%)
Course Rigor: Difficult
Schedule:
9th Grade: AP Human Geography, Honors Algebra 2, Honors Biology, Honors Chinese 2, Honors Spanish 2, World History (2-year course; counts for English credit freshman year), Yearbook
10th Grade: AP World History, AP European History, Honors Pre-calculus, Honors Chemistry, Honors Spanish 3, Honors English 2, Honors Art 2D
11th Grade: AP Computer Science, AP Calculus AB, AP U.S. History, AP Chinese 4, AP Spanish 4, AP English 3 Language, AP Psychology, Honors Sociology
12th Grade: AP Spanish 5, AP English 4 Literature, AP Biology, AP Statistics, AP Macroeconomics, AP U.S. Government
Other credits (through exam/e-school/summer school): Chinese 1, Chinese 3, Physics, Health, PE Foundations, Communications
HONORS/AWARDS:
National Merit Semifinalist [12th]
Pan American Student Forum 1st place 11th
National Spanish Exam 1st place 9th, 11th
City piano competition, 3rd place [9th]
EXTRACURRICULARS:
President/founder of a gavel club (Toastmasters, but for youth under age of 18) [speech]
Longtime attorney and juror in program that processes real misdemeanors sponsored by my city’s municipal court [debate/volunteering]
Vice President/cofounder of my school’s writing club [writing/English]
Teacher’s Assistant/camp counselor for a speech program I’ve been involved with for a long time [speech]
Member of another local gavel club [speech]
Yearbook staff (had out-of-class commitment during ninth grade) [journalism/publication]
Piano (have played since age of four. daily practice, didn’t participate in many competitions) [musical]
Art (weekly class. I have a portfolio but it’s not very good, also I’m not planning to study art in college) [visual art]
WORK:
Student worker/receptionist at local after-school (Took calls, handled student registration, made Excel spreadsheets to track program availability and student attendance, other miscellaneous work)
Brief stint as server at a Chinese restaurant
OTHER: good command of Chinese (spoken in home) and Spanish. Dedicate many hours a week to language exchange/learning; working on my fourth and fifth languages. I’ve always been at the top of my class for English and language/speech/essay-heavy classes. Did pretty badly in my math/science classes.
EARLY ACTION APPLICATIONS [done]:
University of Notre Dame
Georgetown University
UT Austin (applying to Plan II Honors program)
Baylor University (Waco)
Texas A&M (College Station)
REGULAR DECISION / CONSIDERING:
Cornell University
Duke Kunshan University
Emory University
Johns Hopkins University
NYU (Interest in NY and Shanghai campuses)
Northwestern University
Rice University
Tufts University
Washington University in St. Louis
UCLA
UC Berkeley
INTENDED MAJOR: English/Undecided
Please give me a perspective on my admissions chances for these schools. If you have any suggestions for schools I should add to my list, please let me know! I’m aware that most of the schools on my list are “reach” schools.
Thank you!
yumina