GPA is bringing me down..curiousity is getting me..

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I'm curious to see what schools you guys think I can get in to, considering the following information. Thanks to all who read:</p>

<p>I have no idea how competitive my school is, just that their API scores are 795 and highest in the district, and that we're a National Blue Ribbon school. What this means I have no idea, just that the administration says that it is significant. We send no more than ten students to an Ivy each year.</p>

<p>As far as legacies go, my father went to Stanford, and that's about it.</p>

<p>Student
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Location: Sacramento, CA</p>

<p>Academics:
Come application time, I plan to have an UW GPA of 3.83 W GPA of 4.02. currently I have a 3.6/3.8, but this is on a severe upward trend.</p>

<p>Freshman year--UW 3.33, W 3.66
Sophomore Year--UW 3.75, W 3.92
Junior Year--First Semester UW 3.83, W 4.3 (on par to do it again, too)
Senior Year--Signed up for 4 AP Classes of 6 classes, 2 of which are easy A's, other two will be difficult</p>

<p>My class rank right now is 82/415, but it has been increasing rapidly as my GPA has been increasing rapidly. </p>

<p>SAT:
1st time (no studying): 640, 760, 740
2nd time (bunch of studying): 740, 780, 760
3rd time: in may. I'm taking this only because I really want a perfect score in math</p>

<p>Highest score: 2280, so far. I'm really really working for that 2300</p>

<p>ACT:
I'm taking it in june, but I'm counting on 33-35.</p>

<p>SAT II:
In june as well; have no idea what to expect aside from above 700. I tend to do very well on standardized tests</p>

<p>AP Courses:
AP US History, AP Calc A/B
Senior year-signed up for AP Gov, AP Psych, AP English, AP Calc B/C, AP Econ</p>

<p>I've taken the hardest load of classes offered to me at my school, except for AP sciences. We don't offer anything honors besides English, and a relatively small amount of APs.</p>

<p>EXTRACURRICULARS:
Volunteering:
-working at church for hours every month (my dad works there), i do odd jobs from planting trees/cleaning weeds on church grounds to working the soundboard during mass to entering information into their database; probably close to 200 hours total
-working for 8-10 hours each weekend at regattas for crew: 4-5 weeks in May; two years
-volunteered at local elementary school setting up laptop computers for each teacher and arranging all their old information into new computers, then i took every student's grades and put them into a program which made things viewable online. did it completely by myself over three days, took forever. atleast 20 hrs
-volunteering at the Upper Room, a food bank for homeless and underprivileged, with a few of my friends every few months for the past three years
-does tutoring a freshman at lunch 2 times a week for a month count?</p>

<p>Jobs:
Refereed soccer for 6 years, 7 come applications
Tutoring (11, 12)
I plan on getting a summer job somewhere, too</p>

<p>Sports:
Competitive Soccer (9,10) 9th grade we won our district's cup, 10th we were runner up
Crew: novice (9) varsity: (10,11)</p>

<p>Music:
Drums (10,11,12)</p>

<p>Awards:
Honor Roll (9)
High Honors (10, 11)
National Merit Commended/maaybe Semifinalist if I'm lucky (I got 218)</p>

<p>Recommendations:
Guidance Counselor
English Teacher who likes me quite a bit
Math Teacher who "thinks the world of me"</p>

<p>Leadership:
-Coxswain in crew, one of three that is responsible for leading the team. 9, 10 I was number one coxswain, second in command behind the coach
-newspaper (12 only due to schedule conflicts 10th and 11th grade): our newspaper has won a bunch of awards, etc, so that looks nice</p>

<p>on an unrelated note, does anyone have any ideas as far as leadership activities go? I'm aware that I don't have that much besides coxswain, which, while it looks excellent, needs something else to complement it.</p>

<p>If there's any other information that would be helpful, please let me know. I've looked through a bunch of these and didn't see anything else that might be needed. If you could please tell me my chances at the following schools, that would be excellent:</p>

<p>University of Washington
UC Berkeley
UC Los Angeles
Stanford University
Georgetown University
Columbia University
New York University
Boston University
Boston College
UC San Diego</p>

2

<p>I typed this all out for nothing? Lame</p>

3

<p>Berkeley/UCLA: match
UCSD: safe match</p>

<p>A 2280 is just fine.</p>

4

<p>There is no way, those numbers are going to determine your admission... For christ's sake, colleges let kids who are less "qualified" in. Those kids who have the determination to get 4.0's and perfect SAT scores are desired for their dedication. However, creativity is important, and high scores will simply not be enough to ensure you an acceptance.</p>

<p>To put it simply, your GPA and scores are fine. Don't take over five EC's, focus on the ones you have an important position on or a specific volunteer experience you found best.</p>

<p>Do NOT put your experience in that newspaper you mentioned if you were not Editor-In-Chief. Try to play the role of the of the creator(preferably) or leader, not the member. A member can easily be percepted as one who isn't up to the challenge nor level.</p>

<p>If you want a tip on leadership, I would encourage you to start a varsity sport at school. Whatever your school doesn't have, that you may find enjoyable (water polo, lacrosse, ultimate frisbee, badminton, rugby, etc.), try to gain knowledge about the sport you're interested in and ask to get a club going.</p>

<p>Once the club grows and you have a sufficient number of people involved, you can apply as a Varsity team for your district.</p>

<p>As for the letters of reccomendation, I suggest you find a teacher who will write a from the heart reccomendation, that conveys you not only as "great, hard-working, intelligent, 'perfect for your school'." Make sure you talk to the teachers who are writing the letters more often. There's nothing worse than trusting someone who likes you simply as a student. One of my teachers wrote a letter of reccomendation for a friend of mine who got a 98 in her class and seemed to enjoy having her in the class. The teacher simply wrote that the girl was quiet and behaved while the other kids were noisy and disruptive, which cost almost cost her all chances of getting accepted by a college. Make sure you REALLY know who you are getting those recs from, in case you already don't.</p>

<p>Anyway, you have the qualified grades and scores so far, so...</p>

<p>My advice: MAKE YOUR ESSAY STAND OUT, yet not in a way that will hurt you. Make sure your teachers don't think you are simply a bright, motivated kid; let them know who you are as a person, ex: talking about a shared interest you notice he/she conversing about on the phone or with another teacher.</p>

<p>Chances: It's difficult to tell. The way I see it, do your best and try not to focus on chances. The more you focus on chances, the more stress and procastination you will have. I know that you are probably getting into at least one of the schools, seeing as how it would be a really improbable chance of you getting rejected from each and every one.</p>

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<p>"ex: talking about a shared interest you notice he/she conversing about on the phone or with another teacher."</p>

<p>what do you mean by this?</p>

<p>As for the rest of this, thanks a lot. I think I really need to worry less about chances, and the likelihood that I will actually get in to most/any of these schools and focus more on doing.</p>