Help a Sophomore Out!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Hey guys,
I'm currently a sophomore and I just wanted to get a gauge on how I'm doing/ what to do. </p>

<p>The Schools I'm currently looking at are:</p>

<p>Harvard
Brown
Stanford
Wash U in St. Louis
UPenn
UVA (in-state)
Cal Berkeley
Columbia
Vanderbilt
UCLA
Georgetown
Maryland College Park
Boston U (safety?)</p>

<p>Any other suggestions for schools?</p>

<p>Race: ORM</p>

<p>Class Rank: No class ranks :) (would be around top 10 out of 600)</p>

<p>GPA: no unweighted at my school, Currently my weighted GPA is 4.30/4 (estimated 4.50-4.60 at end of Junior year)</p>

<p>At my school, honors is +.5 and AP is +1.0 to the GPA (ie, Alg. 1 HN=4.5; AP Calc=5.0)</p>

<p>Classes:</p>

<p>7th
Alg. 1 HN (A) (high school credit)</p>

<p>8th
Geom HN (A) (high school credit)
Spanish 1 (A) (high school credit)</p>

<p>9th
Bio HN (A)
Photo 1 (A)
World History HN (A)
English 9 HN (A)
Spanish 2 (A)
Alg. 2 HN (A)
PE 9 (A)</p>

<p>10th
Chem HN (A)
AP Stats (A)
AP World History (A)
English 10 HN (A)
Precalc w/Trig HN (A)
Spanish 3 (A)
Leadership/Student Gov. (A)
PE 10 (A)</p>

<p>11th (planned)
AP Chem
AP Calc BC
AP Us History
AP Lang
AP Physics B
Spanish 4
Advanced Composition/ Writing Center</p>

<p>12th (planned)
AP Bio
Multivar Calculus/ Matrix Algebra
AP US Gov./AP US Comparative Gov.
AP Lit
AP Physics C
Spanish 5
Advanced Composition/Writing Center OR Human Anatomy </p>

<p>BTW: this is one of the most competitive sched. @ my school</p>

<p>ECs:
Model UN since 9th grade (running for leadership pos.)
Debate Team (10th grade, almost gar. Secretary position)
Math Honor Society/ Mu Alpha Theta
Art Honor Scoiety
History Honor Society (next year)
Science Honor Society (next year)
Volunteer at highly renown hospital (app. 250 hours by end of Junior year)
Mock Trial (founder, Pres.)
Student rep. at county ecological committee</p>

<p>Summer:
State Governor's School (only 200 from state get in) or Harvard SSP this summer
After Gov. School this year, volunteer for local Democratic committee
Research internship at local college next summer (also applying to internships at Stanford)</p>

<p>Scores:
SAT: Taken many practice tests, estimate 2200-2320
SAT II:
Bio: 740 (Took last year after Bio HN)
Will take World History and Math 2 this June</p>

<p>I want to major/minor in Political Science and Neuroscience or Vice versa. I think that my ECs show a passion for Politics and hopefully my class schedule shows the science part.</p>

<p>As for fin. aid, my paretns make around 200k, so we'd only get like 10k a year at most private schools, so merit aid would be big. Are there any schools to add to my list that have good fin. aid?</p>

<p>Any help would be greatly appreciated. THANKS!</p>

2

<p>Bump 10char</p>

3

<p>I also forgot to mention i have been playing rec league basketball for6 years; i will also be a coach for 6th graders and continue playing.</p>

4

<p>Nice stats, dude. The only schools on your list that offer significant merit aid are WashU, UVA, Berkeley, Vanderbilt, and BU, so you might want to look at some other options as well (Tulane, Case Western, and more). There are literally dozens of threads on this topic, so all you have to do is search around to find good info.</p>

<p>Your ECs are good; having the trifecta of Model UN, Debate, and Mock Trial shows your interest in Poli Sci related stuff. The only thing that sticks out is all of these honor societies. What do they really do? I’m not saying they’re pointless at your school necessarily, but there may be more meaningful ways to use your time.</p>

<p>Anyways, if all goes as planned, I see your prospective chances like this:</p>

<p>Harvard (decent shot)
Brown (decent shot)
Stanford (unpredictable)
Wash U in St. Louis (match)
UPenn (decent shot, more likely than H/S)
UVA (in-state) (in)
Cal Berkeley (decent shot, they’re trying to get more OOS students, but it’ll cost you mad $$$)
Columbia (unpredictable as Stanford, make sure you have a reason for wanting to go there besides “it’s in NYC”)
Vanderbilt (should get in)
UCLA (same as Berkeley, better chances)
Georgetown (good chance)
Maryland College Park (in)
Boston U (in)</p>

5

<p>Thanks Sgt. Donut,</p>

<p>After reading through some other threads, I’m thinking about adding UChicago to my list. Do they give a lot of merit aid? And, I think I’ll add Case Western as a safety.</p>

<p>Also, the honor societies at my school are kind of the “normal” thing to do; I actually don’t know why we do them</p>

6

<p>WHat do you do in the honor societies? To be honest it jumped out at me as something one would do just to get more things to put on an app, like filler. I wouldn’t even mention them unless you felt a strong devotion to them or had an officer position. I see an interest in political science, but not so much neuroscience. I don’t think your schedule really shows your interest in that, seeing as many people who aren’t interested in sciences still take the APs anyway. Also most of your ECs are ECs I’ve seen a lot on CC after lurking here for awhile, so none of it really stands out to me. Harvard is a reach for everybody though. xD</p>

<p>Still, you’re only a sophomore so nothing is impossible. By the way, nice SAT scores. I’m also a sophomore, but I got a 190 on the PSAT this year so I’m not going to take any practice SATs until summer, when I feel more prepared. /embarrassed
I’m probably going to end up having to prepare tons to get that 2300+ that HYPSM usually expects of Asian applicants. |D</p>

<p>And one question. I’m a sophomore in trig pre-calc as well, and I’m going to take AP Calc BC next year. Do you think I should take the Math II SAT II in June as well? I always thought that was Calc based stuff, so I didn’t even bother to think about it but if it’s all trig then I might as well.</p>

7

<p>In the honor societies, we basically act as tutors, get hours, stuff like that.</p>

<p>I hope that if I get an internship next year, the interest in neuro becomes more apparent (along w/ the hospital volunteering). But if it doesn’t, I guess I’ll try to emphasize the poli sci part of me :)</p>

<p>And, the math 2 SAT ends at precalc/trig (i think) and then has some stuff from other parts (3d distance). Go to the collegeboard website and look at the Math 2 part, it gives a breakdown of what’s tested. I would recommend taking it (especially if you haven’t done any other subject SATs); if you aren’t sure, buy a test prep book and do a couple of tests.</p>

8

<p>Oh haha. So it’s like National Honor Society sort of?
At my school we barely do anything in NHS. We meet once a month, talk about nothing, and that’s that. That’s why I’m deciding to just occupy myself by creating clubs at my school that I find interest in, stuff like that.</p>

<p>But awesome. I want to major in neuroscience too. Dual major biology/neuroscience. I want to be a neurosurgeon when I grow up hehe.</p>

<p>Oh. I just tried the questions, and I don’t think I should take it. My school isn’t big on academics, and so although I’m taking trig, I haven’t learned much at all so my math foundation is very shaky. Do you know of any good websites I could self-study with possibly, or some good books? I think I should just start studying a lot on my own since my school doesn’t teach us much. For trig pre-calc, we have a really lazy student teacher that hates teaching us more than what she thinks is important, so we’ve basically been learning 5 chapters over the course of 6 months already. I still don’t even know what a matrix is. u__u</p>

9

<p>Exactly, but for a spec. subject. In my school, NHS is for upper classmen only </p>

<p>try khan academy to learn some of the new things for the Math subject test; then try books like princeton review and barrons for practice tests.</p>

<p>How far are you guys in precalc? In my school, we do math analysis, then trig, then Calc (the A part of AB). We are starting the A part this week (ps. i learned matricies in Alg. 2)</p>

10

<p>We’re not even on pre-calc yet to be honest haha. Right now, we are learning how to graph hyperbolas, parabolas, and ellipses. Yeaaahhhh. e__e We spent a whole month on factoring and fraction division though, so that sort of explains it.</p>

<p>Does khan academy have everything one would need to learn? </p>

<p>In Algebra II, my math teacher left for about two months because of a health problem, and so we had a sub. I barely learned anything in there so I’m not too confident on my algebra either haha. My state is one of the worst in terms of academics, and my school is more religious and athletic based, so most of the teachers don’t really care about teaching. Community college classes are no help either though.</p>

<p>Meh, I think I’ll just take the Math II SAT II next year after I take AP Calc BC and self-study algebra through trig pre-calc on my own during summer.</p>

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<p>For khan academy, i’d recommend first buying the book. Then read through the review material given in the book, if tht section of the book isn’t making sense, google for that concept on khanacademy.</p>

<p>what state are you in?</p>

<p>Taking it after Calc is totally fine; it might even be better</p>

12

<p>Ah. I have textbooks at home that I might be able to study from. They’re pretty old but I think I’ll be alright. xD</p>

<p>NM. xD Isn’t it ranked 49th in the country in terms of education? LOL. Most of the people in my school don’t really care about studying and stuff like that, since it’s really easy to get good grades. A lot of the teachers at my school are really unprepared, some don’t even know what they are talking about so they just read us the textbook during class as our lesson haha.</p>

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<p>Very impressive!</p>

<p>Stay at it and I’m sure you can get in wherever you want to go.</p>

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<p>bump 10char</p>

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<p>bump 10char</p>