Sat: 2230 (Single Sitting), Super Score = 2310. M 800, W 780, R 730. Took twice.
GPA: 3.67 UW, top public school in nation, Unsure of weighted. Massive increase in Gpa junior year
APs:
7 so far, 3 more as a senior. AP Micro(4), AP US(5), AP Chem(4), AP Lang and comp(5), AP Comp Sci(4), AP BC(5), AP World(4). Will be taking AP Mandarin, AP Lit, and AP Physics A as a senior.
SAT Subj: 780 M2, 770 Chem, 730 Lit
-Have always taken most rigorous courses in each subject available. Had terrible UW gpa freshman and sophmore year (3.5 about), but managed to get a 3.87 UW gpa Junior year with 5 aps (Chem, Comp sci, BC, World, Lang(Eng))
ECs:
- Varsity tennis for 2 years, Won county tournament draw 2nd year, helped team reach division finals as well that year. captain as a senior
- Part of Buddhist Community Service group. We do a lot of volunteer work such as helping out at senior centers and beach clean ups. Also helped design a community service project to raise money for school supplies for children in the Dominican Republic. Our project was entered in the community service organization’s national competition and won.
- Leader of Save the Elephants club, club to raise awareness for elephants. We do a lot of community activities and fundraisers such as t-shirt sales and walks
- Member of School’s improv group
- Member of Model UN for two years.
- Work 8+ hour shifts at my father’s small business / biology lab during the summer.
- 50 hours of tutoring
- Future Peer group leader as a senior.
Essays / Recs:
-Rec from Ap Eng teacher. Did very well in her class and she loves me as student. Have never missed a single day of class. Writes very good recs and is heavily sought after.
- Rec from Comp Sci teacher. Did alright in her class, Can’t tell how rec is going to be.
- Essay about how I got cut freshman year from the tennis team, and how next year, I surprised the coaches by making the varsity line up.
-Interested in applying to Emory college of Arts and sciences and majoring in Biology or Chemistry, and a minor in Computer Sciences (maybe, not completely sure)
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender : M
Income : 100,000+
Would greatly appreciate any advice or replies.
@dangusdorangus Your profile looks fine only in a stereotypical sense but your scores are very strong. The upward trend in GPA will certainly helps as well. Do well in your essays (the supplement asks you to do things like design or class or describe something you taught yourself over the past year, so be able to show that you have a desire to learn, think deeply, and articulate your interests well) and you should have a decent shot, but please hope your CS teacher’s rec. is not a flop because I think that once you are in the “possibly admit” category, they actually read that stuff: If admissions works anything like this depiction, it is not a joke that relies too heavily on stats to put one over the top. They seem very nuanced which may explain all of the surprise no’s and yeses I’ve seen on this forum from Emory in the past 2 years:http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_MAGAZINE/issues/2014/autumn/features/freshman.html . I was stuck in the mode of thinking: “since Emory’s admit rates and stats are lower than peer schools, these people with high stats, especially when applying ED, are automatically in” This seems not to be the case.
Shameless plug: If you came to Emory, major in chemistry 
and dabble with the best biology and CS courses (actually many of my more successful friends did something along this line and got good job offers). You seem more quantitatively/computationally inclined and biology does have some solid offerings that are quantitative and problem solving oriented (such as physical biology, population biology, and advanced molecular genetics, and a new one rolling out next spring-computational modelling which is taught by the same awesome guy who teaches physical biology) but the chemistry department may be a better fit because that is its very nature. Plus, I think it is changing to favor people like you with strong backgrounds coming in and varied interests and those changes will be rolled out in the year you are to enroll if admitted. You can see a general ideas of what these changes are supposed to be be here (more towards bottom of the article): http://cen.acs.org/articles/93/i9/Revising-Chemistry-Curriculum.html . I think if they do it well, a person like you will benefit. For example, instead of learning the barebone basics in gen. chem like at most schools for example, you may learn cooler things in a non-lecture format. Or better yet, you can skip to intro. courses in other disciplines such as biochemistry. The beginning of bio may actually be a turn-off (however, you would be a student capable of doubling up and finding out your preferences yourself)…I feel there are more top instructors for the freshman courses in chemistry than there are in biology.
Thanks for the info bernie. I am not too worried about my own essays as personal writing and English have always been my stronger suits. Regarding my comp sci teacher’s rec, I know she is considered a good rec writer for those who have shown interest in computer science; she does like me as a student and is supportive of my interests in computer sciences, but english is not her first language and she often makes grammatical errors in her writing.
Since I got a 4 on the AP Chem exam, would I be able to skip the introductory chemistry courses? If so, what chemistry courses would be available to me as a freshman?
4/5 is sufficient to exempt 1/2 of whatever science sequence (and as you know with math, B/C credit lets you exempt and receive transfer credit for calc. 1 and 2). I am not sure how the new system will work. The current one works such that if you have 4/5, you may sit out gen. chem 1 and just take gen. chem 2, or you may opt to take ochem which is a good option if you are majoring but is less good if you say, a pre-med trying to major in something else. IF the new system allows credit to go towards the new intro. course they design (I think it should or else the class’s enrollment will balloon and the new roundtable classroom they are going to use may not be able to accommodate this increase), you will be able to engage whatever the other 4 foundation courses are without taking pchem. Since they can be take in any order, my guess is that some will be offered both semesters. Based on the choices cited in that article, you may choose pchem (it won’t be the difficult pchem you heard of but more like a thermodynamics and kinetics course, IE general chemistry with the calculus behind the concepts being discussed. I think those teaching it are hoping students like you with AP credit in math will take it), biochemistry, a semester level organic (I imagine it will be ochem-lite…depending on who is teaching it, avoid it if you actually value learning things at a decent level, I trust more that the others will be taught at sufficient levels as this one has always had problems when certain instructors taught it), and inorganic (this can be cool if applications are stressed-but topic wise, I consider it boring when the concepts are taught in a vacuum). Either way, what is happening is that courses traditionally at the advanced level are now going to be taught such that they are accessible to those who are just starting chemistry and have some college level foundation (either the intro course or AP/IB). Then I think they are redesigning the upperlevels so that they go in more depth or emphasize a different set of skills that you should be able to apply because you’ve already had heavy exposure to the material in all of them in the 1st 2 years at Emory.
As far as I’m concerned, you should look out for the following teachers (I don’t know what they’ll be doing in the curriculum but they will continue to be excellent and unique in what and how they teach in a good way-though some are more rigorous than what you would get elsewhere) if you came to Emory for chemistry: Weinert (biochemistry), Lutz (biochemistry), Mulford (general/inorganic), McGill (general), Salaita (a range of things including analytical and biochemistry because he’s a biophysical chemist), Soria (organic related topics), Weinschenk (organic-maybe biochem), Weaver (general, analytical), Snyder (I hope his molecular modelling class survives), McDonald (but only for upper levels or better yet special topics. He doesn’t really teach large sections well). If any of these folks teach the foundation courses, take them because they’ll prep you well for advanced courses better other teachers (or if they teach at several levels, you can take them again and establish a mentoring relationship or whatever).