<p>I realize that anyone other than the adcoms themselves have no way of being sure that one can get into Harvard (unless the person has perfect everything and is a child prodigy at 5 different things). I know that the admission ratio to Harvard is around 11:1. I just want to know if I am even a viable one of the 11. In other words, I want some personal opinions on if I will even be considered as competitive by the admissions people.
I am a Korean male. I moved to US 6 years ago. I speak fluent Korean; I heard that it is an advantage surprisingly rare among Korean American students because overzealous Korean parents force their children to completely integrate into American society when they move here. Correct me if I'm wrong.
My GPA is 3.8691 unweighted and 4.8499 weighted, with a STRONG upward tendency since last year.
I go to a small public school in a town in Missouri. Very un-competitive. Last year, only four people went to somewhat prestigious schools. Also, it offers less than 10 AP courses together. I have taken/signed up for the most challenging courses possible that I could fit into my schedule. Will Harvard take that into consideration or will they just laugh at my handful of AP-level classes?
My rank is 20 out of 351.
My highest SAT I is 2150. I don't know the specifics because the website is down right now, but math was by far the highest IIRC.
Highest ACT is 32 with writing. Math and Sci were the higher scores.
I got 770 in SAT II Biology. I got lower than 700 on US history and Math IIC :(
I got 4, 4, 5 in AP US Hist, Euro Hist, and Bio, respectively.
My EC's are so-so:
I'm on Cabinet, which is the highest leadership position in my school.
I'm am one of the 3 officers in math club. I've been in every single mathletics events since 9th grade.
I'm in Academic Team varsity. I've been in it for 3 years now (was a JV in sophomore year), and I'm most likely to be named Captain next week.
I'm in NHS.
I've done Science Olympiad 2 times and plan to do it again this year. And also I plan to do science knowledge bowl this year.
I did Model UN last year.
I know there are very modest, but my school does not offer any of the selective, prestigious, nationally-recognized societies for the ultra elites. My counselor has told me that I am one of the most non-athletically involved people in the entire school.
The only awards I have won are school things:
Academic Team 2nd place in the school tournament. I hope and expect to become the school champion this year.
When I was 10th grade, I won the school math contest for 9-10. When I was 11th grade, I won the school's 11-12 math contest. Hopefully I will continue the winning streak this year :)
I've won other minor things as well, but they really are very minor.
I have many service hours with church, but if that doesn't count, I have very few.
I also play 3 different instruments. I play violin with the town's Youth Symphony, and we actually got to play at Carnegie Hall last summer. I guess that's something that very few of the applicants can boast of :)
I know I have many weaknesses. I plan to write my essays to convey how I am different from the thousand of other Korean kids applying to Harvard and really give it a lot of thought.
So....that's it. No offense, but even if you give me a chance of getting in, I'm probably not going to trust you anyway, so just please tell me if I should even hope to get in. Thanks for reading!</p>
<p>You should really try to raise up those SATs</p>
<p>Well, I'm technically above Harvard's middle 50%, which is 2100. But you're probably right. What should I aim for?</p>
<p>I guess I'm one of those thousands of other koreans you will have to distinguish yourself from. feel free to look up at my stats in the stanford thread.</p>
<p>i hope you get in. live that azn dream.
화이팅!</p>