<p>Hey guys, thanks for your help. :) I want to go to Duke because they have three undergraduate neuroscience programs-- and because I want to be a neuroscientist, well, it's obvious why I want to go to Duke. </p>
<p>Age: 17
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Asian
Location: California
School: Public-- around 480 students in grade
Rank: Around top 11% (I barely make 10% with 9th grade grades, but for 10th and up, I'm just barely off.</p>
<p>Unweighted GPA: Around 3.8666
Weighted GPA: Around 4.0666 (actually, it might be a little higher, as I don't know if community college courses are equivalent to AP classes, so I didn't use the AP boost on them)
SAT: 2220 (CR 750, Math 760, Writing 710) (Essay: 8 <-- I don't really know what happened, usually writing was the easiest part..) (took only once, but have no more time to retake it)
SAT II: Bio E: 780, US History: 740 (I will be taking English Lit and Math II in October!)
ACT: 33 (Essay: 11) (I'm probably going to take the ACT again if I have time to increase score)</p>
<p>APs Taken: English Language (5), US History (5), Biology (5)
Courseload for senior year: AP Chem, AP Economics, Government Honors, AP Calculus AB, AP English Lit
Community College Classes: 3 taken so far (all A's).</p>
<p>Extracurriculars
-National Honor Society (NHS) member from 10th and up; NHS Secretary for senior year
-Cofounder and secretary of a cancer club at school
-Volunteer leader for non profit organization dealing with economically disadvantaged families and children-- tenth grade and up
-Associated Student Body (Student government): 9th, 10th; Freshman class Secretary
-Speech and Debate: 9th and up
-Going to a Native American reservation during the summer to help out and volunteer: 7th- 11th grade; did some research there on garlic-- didn't publish it or put it into a science fair or anything, so I don't really know if it counts (should I include research on garlic as part of my resume?)
-Peer tutor at high school and at local elementary school: 11th grade, 25+ hours
-Participated in Red Cross Blood Drive 9th- 11th
-Helped lead fundraiser that raised over $8,000 for cancer patients at school
-Helped lead fundraiser that raised over 3,000 pounds of canned food for the economically disadvantaged at school
-Helped out at multiple homeless shelters from 2005 to 2009
-Part of school welcoming committee for freshman: 11th and soon 12th
-Over 130+ hours community service</p>
<p>-Nationally ranked 13th speaker at Policy Debate Tournament
-Octofinals at same tournament.</p>
<p>-Internship over summer 2009 with alternative energy company (4 days a week, 6 hours a day)
-Job working as cashier at fast food restaurant during summers and partly through year (10th grade through 11th grade summer)</p>
<p>As for my major, I want to do pre- med majoring in neuroscience (it's freakishly fascinating!), but I guess because my activities don't really show a huge "passion" for pre- med or neuroscience, I guess I'm going to choose something along the lines of alternative energy as my major (alternative energy is actually pretty interesting, so I have some credibility there haha-- Nicholas School of the Environment!) and then "switch to pre- med."</p>
<p>Thank you all so much. And I'm actually really curious about Duke's stance on alternative energy, and how much it's actually pushing forward, so if anyone has any information even remotely related to do with it, please feel free to enlighten me. :)</p>
<p>Thank you :)</p>