<p>Stanford is the only "top tier" university I am applying to (the others are all in Florida). So, the breadth of my college admissions focus is going into my application for Stanford. However, I only have "sub-par" stats:</p>
<p>3.7 UW GPA / 4.17 W GPA <=== will this kill me?
33 ACT</p>
<p>AP English Lang - 5 <=== story about this one
AP CALC AB - 4</p>
<p>Schedule senior year:
AP Microeconomics
AP Macroeconomics
AP CALC BC
AP US Govt
AP Comparative Govt
AP Euro history
AP English Lit</p>
<p>EC's
Texas Academic Decathlon - consistent highest team scorer + 3rd science @ regionals
UIL Program - 6th Science @ regionals
Orchestra - "rising star" award 2 years, UIL commended ensemble rating + commended performance for both Chamber orchestra and band
Science/Math Bowl - co captain</p>
<p>I know that my EC's and grades are pretty weak. However, the school I previously attended offered very few AP classes and the ones it did, the scores were very sub par ( I believe only 1 or 2 people received a highest rating of 4 out of 100+ testing). I can get a recommendation though, from a teacher who saw me skip my lunch period every day my entire junior year, simply so I could compete with the Academic Decathlon team at regionals. (In addition I pulled off some extra subjective awards getting all the study packets and guides 3 to 4 months later than the rest of the competition. ) This same teacher is the one who I held philosophical conversations with everyday after class, in addition to seeing me pull off the only 5 on the AP test out of the 200+ classmates taking it. Could combining this rec with an essay that links it all together possibly "cover up" the mediocre grades/scores?</p>
<p>Thanks for reading</p>