Finished Junior Year- Chance for UPenn, UC's

Demographics

  • 2nd Gen College Student
  • Asian Male
  • California
  • Mom- Berkeley Alum, Dad- UCLA Alum
  • 100,000+ Income Bracket

GPA

  • 3.971 Unweighted (15 of 534, top 3%)
  • 4.543 Weighted (17 of 534, top 3%)
  • 4.0 Unweighted and 4.8 Weighted Sophomore and Junior Year

Schedule (Sports/PE not accounted for in GPA)
-Freshman Year
-English 1H- B/A
-Biology 1H- A/A
-Geometry Regular- A/A
-Korean 2- A/A
-Geography/Health- A/A

-Sophomore Year
-World History AP- A/A
-Algebra 2H- A/A
-English 2H- A/A
-Korean 3- A/A
-Chemistry Regular- A/A

-Junior Year
-AP US History- A/A
-Chemistry AP- A/A
-English Language and Composition AP- A/A
-Pre-Calculus H- A/A
-Korean 4H- A/A

-Senior Year Schedule
-AP Calculus BC
-AP Government and Economics
-English Literature and Composition AP
-Korean 5H
-Journalism

Extracurriculars
-Head Basketball Team Manager and Statistician for High School Team (Active participation for Freshman, JV, and Varsity in 3 years)
-CSF Member and Tutoring Committee Member 11-12 (35+ hours)
-3rd Degree Black Belt (13 years of taekwondo) and student instructor at local studio (200+)
-Volunteer at California Open Taekwondo Tournament- 36 hours
-Applications Club ICC Rep or Activities Director
-Journalism for 1 Year
-February Student of the Month
-Spartan Laurels for Social Science and English (Awards given by teachers to top students in a subject)
-Presidential Service Award in Gold (250+ hours of community service, I got 252)
-PAVA World Member (2014-2015)
-LA Mayor Service Award for being a captain in street cleanup
-Certificates of Appreciation from Councilmen Tom Labonge and Herb Wesson for volunteer work in LA
-Hollywood Christmas Parade 2014 Participant (80+ hours of practice)
-Member of Korean Nature Conservationist Group (Moo Goong Hwa), 84 hours working in Griffith Park and at local LA missions
-Intern for David Ryu for LA City Council Campaign

Standardized Tests (Please chance as if my best score is the 2090, I don’t know if the October Test will be better or not)
-October 2014 SAT- 2090 (670M, 670CR, 750W, 8E)
-January 2015 SAT- 2010 (710M, 610 CR, 690W, 9E)
-Superscore- 2130 (710M, 670CR, 750W)
Taking October 2015 SAT

APs and SAT IIs
-World History AP- 5
-APUSH- Likely 4-5
-AP Chem- Likely 2-3
-AP English- Likely 4-5
-World History SAT II- 690
-US History SAT II- 700+

Letters of Recommendation
-Korean teacher- Student for 5 years for her
-Basketball Coach
-Councilman David Ryu

Colleges
-UPenn Wharton (ED)
-Brown- Economics
-UC Berkeley- Pre Business Admin to Haas
-UCLA- Business Economics
-NYU Stern
-Columbia University- Financial Economics
-Dartmouth- Economics
-UCSD- Economics
-UCI- Economics
-USC- Business Administration
-Pomona College- Economics
-UCSB- Economics

Your biggest problem is demographic and to a lessor extent SAT scores. The only Ivy where you have a reasonable chance is Dartmouth in my opinion, but you should apply to the others. NYU could go either way. You would know best on the UCs.

You would be an enormously attractive candidate for the eastern LACs because their Asian populations are generally very low plus you offer geographic diversity. They would be a better risk/reward than the Ivies and better experience than NYU. If coming east is something you want I would change things around. Boston College would be an option as well.

It’s crowded out there for Asian males.

UC’s do not superscore so 2090 SAT is what they will use. UC GPA? http://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

UCLA/UCB: High Match
UCSD/USC/UCSB: Match
UCI: Low Match
You are a competitive applicant so Good Luck.

Ivies are a crapshoot for anyone, but I think you’re definitely qualified! The only thing in your application I would say to improve on is test scores, but don’t stress too much bc 2090 is still excellent. Just for ivies I think you may have a better chance with a higher score. I think if your essays are really good and you can project your passions in your application well, you will be fine!

Reach: UPenn ED, Columbia, Brown, Pomona
High Match: Berkeley, UCLA, Dartmouth, NYU, USC

Match: UCSD, UCSB
Low Match: UCI

All the best!

UC- 4.33 GPA

EDIT- UC GPA is 4.4

For ivies, 2150+ is ideal, 2200+ for Wharton

US History Subject Test- 780