HYPS, columbia, rice, washu. free for all, i'm very open to suggestions.

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Asian female
Currently a Junior
average high school
here's the kicker: i'm from the great state of north dakota, which means my community is about 99% caucasian </p>

<p>-Unweighted GPA 4.0
Weighted GPA 4.3</p>

<p>-# of AP/IB/honors courses
Junior year:
Honors Eng
APUSH
APBIO
APENGLANG</p>

<p>Senior Year:
APGOV
APCHEM
APCALC
APENGLIT</p>

<p>I'm taking the most vigorous courses my school is offering, as i've said before, my high school is very very average</p>

<p>-class rank/size
1/350</p>

<p>-ACT (first time) second time coming up in june
Comp 32 (35E 30M 33R 31S 11essay)
-taking SATI in a week for the first time, projected 2000s, probably won't go above 2200 the second time
PSAT ...bad but i still made the cut off for the first round of national merit, yay for living in North Dakota</p>

<p>-SAT II scores- taking them in OCT. BIO E and MATH I and II Projected 720-780</p>

<p>-AP scores
just took apush, bio, and englang a week ago. projecting two 4s and one 5</p>

<p>-ECs -
Piano 10 years: won various small competitions and has participated in "festivals" and so on
Clarinet: all state band since eighth grade, superior ratings etc.
Varsity tennis: five year letterman, captain
four year Fine Arts letterman
NHS- Vice President
Key Club - VP
DECA- second in state for my event, qualified for nationals; top 30% at nationals
Principal's club</p>

<p>-employment -- summer job 30 hours a week
-volunteering- about 150 hours so far, some from school organizations; most from a local hospital</p>

<p>-honors/awards --
Tennis- hardest worker 2 years :)
various small local competition placements
Marketing student of the year
American Math Competition school winner- 2 consecutive years
accepted into State's Governor's School program for Science</p>

<p>there a whole crap load of small awards, nothing very significant, although the quantity is quite impressive</p>

<p>-great recs, good essays</p>

<p>i know i'm really not that impressive, but i'm hoping this North Dakota thing carries me some ways. i would really appreciate any suggestions, i.e. safeties, reaches, etc. </p>

<p>thanks for your time.</p>

2

<p>Im not that good of a chancer, but you might be too average compared to other applicants... Maybe with really good AP scores and higher SAT scores than your projected scores, you may stand a chance against others. Add some more ECs if possible. good luck</p>

3

<p>Okay, so I wasn't going to reply to this thread, because it's late and I'm tired (so forgive me if I'm semi-coherent and rambling), but we have the exact same AP schedule (except sub Spanish for Chem), and we're predicting the exact same scores (5 on Eng, 4s on Bio and UPUSH). Sorry, I just found that funny.</p>

<p>So while I'm here, chances:</p>

<p>HYPS will be pretty tough for you. Maybe a possibility due to your high GPA, and strong ECs (though I don't see any EC that has the kind of huge, flashing "THIS IS A LIFE-DEFINING PASSION" sign that HYPS likes) but I have to say it looks relatively unlikely from my perspective. </p>

<p>Any tier below that is a serious possibility. 4.0 valedictorians may get discounted around here, but the fact is that if you have a 4.0 and you're valedictorian, odds are you'll get into at least one of the top tier schools, if you have anything which sets you apart as an applicant. Just from your post here, you seem to have not a very "typical asian person" type of persona, so perhaps you can use that to your advantage in your essays. Your essay, in fact, is a great place to work that North Dakota angle. </p>

<p>Overall, with good recs, and a good essay, it looks to me as though you'll probably get a healthy mixture of rejections and acceptances at top colleges outside of HYPS, and even HYPS may be a possibility. I'd encourage you to look at more schools close to Rice in admissions difficulty---I'd say that's schools like Northwestern, UChicago, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown etc., just so that there's a very strong chance that you'll have a top-tier university to go attend if things go poorly with Ivys and such. Also, I'd encourage you to apply to a large-ish number of places if you can; I think that because you have great objective stats, whether or not you get in to a school will depend largely on if the applicants with stats as good as you also have really strong ECs est scores\passions in the same area as you. I hope that makes sense. </p>

<p>Anyway, best of luck in your college search!</p>

4

<p>I'd say you're doing pretty well! Just got to get some great test scores =)</p>

<p>What do you think you'll go in to at college? You seem a pretty smart person who at the same time works very hard. I think you just need to find some ways to make yourself stand out even more-whether it may be a unique experience over the summer or an amazing essay. To be honest, I see your ECs as very strong, but I'm still looking for those one or two things that separate you from the rest of the applicants. Throw that with high test scores, your already high GPA, string of ECs, and I'd say you've got a great shot!</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

<p>(another note-I'm Washington DECA's State President. Perhaps we saw each other at ICDC? =)</p>

5

<p>thank you so much! people are very friendly here on CC.
also exceptionally smart...correlation??;) </p>

<p>Thanks again!</p>