<p>I'm a member of the class of 2011 at a public high school in Michigan. I intend to apply to UC Berkeley, and I was hoping to have a clearer picture of how I will fare next year and to get some advice on how I could strengthen my application to colleges. Below are the stats that I can think of.</p>
<p>My school calculates GPAs strangely, with any A being a 4, any B being a 3, and so on. I have a 3.944 following this system, with the 2 or 3 Bs having come from my first two years. My weighted GPA is a 4.056.</p>
<p>So far, I have been in advanced and/or honors English and Mathematics courses throughout my high school career. My curriculum has been relatively rigorous, but I have taken a few easy classes relevant to my interests at the time and avoided some of the more difficult sciences, as I don't foresee myself choosing a career in medicine/biology (except possibly neuroscience), engineering, etc.</p>
<p>My PSAT score was a 226 and my SAT composite was a 2300 (790 CR, 780 M, 730 W). The APs I've taken are English Language and Composition, Macroeconomics, and Microeconomics. I received a 5 for each one.</p>
<p>I was a staff member and the ad manager of the school newsmagazine during the first semester of my junior year. Unfortunately, I had to drop the class for scheduling purposes. I continued to help out with sales and ad work, but I did not publish any articles since leaving the team in January. I'm part of a group that is working to revive it as an extracurricular and online publication starting Fall 2010.</p>
<p>My course load next year will be as follows:
AP Calculus BC
AP Chemistry
AP English Literature
AP Statistics
Debate 1*
Intro to Physical Education (required for graduation)
Spanish 4
* I'm on a waitlist to replace this class with AP Government.</p>
<p>This summer, I was a clerk at a local law firm for about a month. I'm in talks with Amnesty International and medical researchers at a local university. I will also be assisting in research on Michigan nonprofits.</p>
<p>As far as extracurriculars go, I have been a member of the Muslim Students Association since 9th grade (I was elected president for my senior year), and I was in DECA during sophomore year, when I made it to the international level of DECA competition for an event in which I pitched a business idea to judges playing the role of venture capitalists. I am in a volunteering club at school, and I intend to participate in my school's NHS, Economics Club, and Model UN chapters as well as the debate club/team next year. I've also been selected as a member of a council of students that will seek to address issues related to diversity and negative attitudes.</p>
<p>Entirely outside of school, I have taken enough Arabic and Urdu lessons to read fluently and comprehend conversation at about an elementary level. Using tools such as smart.fm and byki.com, I have learned moderate amounts of French and German. I have taught myself the Greek, Cyrillic, and Hebrew alphabets, and intend to be able to read the Hiragana and the Devanagari writing systems by the end of this summer. I have started a few blogs, working on one or two at a time. My most recent foray is an ongoing blog of ideas that are free for anybody to use. Each post is essentially what you would find on patent files, minus the claims to intellectual property.</p>
<p>That's everything that I can think of. Please let me know how good of a shot you think that I have at admission and what I can do to make myself a stronger candidate. Any helpful suggestions are welcome. If you need any more relevant information or would like for me to clarify something, please let me know.</p>