Do I have a shot?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Chinese male living in Illinois, citizen, applying to MITea, UChicago (ea maybe), Berkeley, UIUC, Pton, Yale
SAT: 800m, 700v, 760w
SAT II: 800mII, 770chem, 700span.
AP tests: Calc. BC 5, Spanish Lang. 5, Macro 4, Chem. 5
Class Rank: 2/499 weighted</p>

<p>AP/college classes taken:
Calc BC, Span, Gov, macro, chem, Multivariable calc (A), diff. equations (A)</p>

<p>Schedule:
AP comp sci
AP stat
AP eng.
AP physics
AP bio
Ap u.s.
band</p>

<p>Important EC:
Math team - (regional champion, placed in state, blah blah blah), AMC bronze (113.5 AMC 12 :( 7 AIME), rensselaer aw., captain
Piano - 12 yrs, state awards, etc
Wind Ensemble/Marching band - section leader, 1st div. solo
Cross Country/Track Varsity
Schol. bowl - captain, Conference champ
Tutor at school and at chinese academy - my favorite volunteer activity</p>

<p>Summer:
frosh. - took classes
soph. - research intern at Fermi Nat. Labs
jun. - Young Scholars program at UChicago in math, work w/professors and hoping to enter Intel STS</p>

<p>Rec.s - Shouldn't be too bad, hope at least 1 is outstanding
Essay - aight. Short answer essays A, long essay B- (thus far)</p>

2

<p>Oh, and I'm low income. I mean LOW. this year, sub 20k.
And I organized the NSO team from our school.</p>

3

<p>If it's bad, just say so...</p>

4

<p>pretty good, but is that schedule your senior year schedule? That looks pretty intense. Ec's are excellent. MIT YALe are reaches in my opinion</p>

5

<p>Chicago should be a go.</p>

6

<p>Other opinions would be swell.</p>

7

<p>Oh, and if MIT and Yale are reaches, I assume Princeton would be one as well...</p>

8

<p>MIT/Yale/P-ton are reaches for 99.9% of the population so I'm sure that doesn't come as a shock. Probably in at Berk, but you never know OOS for the upper UC's. UIUC obviously in. UChi probably in, but the essays weigh a lot more than they do at most other schools</p>

9

<p>Oh, and I do ARML.</p>

10

<p>I think you're issue is that there's a drop off that's significant beyond math/science. So you are like a lot of math/science heavy asian candidates to be blunt. That will make Yale and Princeton huge reaches. MIT seems more likely if you do well with Intel. But even there you're going to need some special math/science card. Chicago just seems the best bet with what you have now.</p>

11

<p>I do key club and NHS and stuff like that, but I dunno, it seems like everybody does volunteering/fundraisers and such. I don't want to include something on my app. I'm really not that motivated about - should I?</p>

12

<p>Though your EC's kind of lack, I still think you have great chances with your rank and GPA :)</p>

13

<p>Umm, a 7 on the AIME puts you nearly at the top of any school - it's almost the base score for USAMO qualification which is extrmely remarkable. If MIT wasn't so arbitrary then you'd have an excellent shot at getting in. However, MIT and the Ivies are arbitrary and often reject people with better stats in favor of more diversity and thus, while you do have a shot at any of them, don't get your hopes too high on any of them.</p>

14

<p>You may NOTwant to write you are low income... but I think you have a shot at all the schools you listed</p>

15

<p>"You may NOTwant to write you are low income"
Why is that?</p>

16

<p>they're going to know about the income anyway b/c you will apply for financial aid. i think it helps, b/c it shows accomplishment despite opportunity (plus it'll be assumed you didn't take any fancy $2k SAT prep classes).</p>

17

<p>hm, more leadership wouldn't hurt
ex. organizing a large scale fundraiser</p>

<p>a fundraiser is something other than clubs that could jump out @ the adcom</p>

18

<p>What should I fundraise for? I don't really wanna do it just for the application...</p>

19

<p>well what stands out on my app is that i founded and was the cheif organizer of a big scale tsunami relief concert with a 5 member committee- made $5500 and donated all the DRI </p>

<p>its hardcore, took me 2months of real hard work</p>

<p>if you can pull it off, everybodys been telling me that its what stands out on my resume</p>