<p>Lives in Wyoming
Permanent resident, not citizen
Gender: M
Ethnicity: Chinese
College Class Year: 2008
High School: Public
High School Type: rarely (like really rarely) sends grads to top schools
Will apply for financial aid: Yes
Junior Year</p>
<p>Academics:</p>
<p>GPA - Unweighted: 3.98
GPA - Weighted: (school doesnt weight)
Class Rank: top 8%
Class Size: 297</p>
<p>Predicted ACT: 25
AP Calc AB- expected 5
Ap Stat-expected 5</p>
<p>Extracurriculars:
-AMC 12 2007 1st in state
-Swimming Varsity
-Teaches Chinese Classes
-Fluent in four languages: English, Chinese, German, Hebrew</p>
<p>Planned Senior Classes:
note: college classes are dual enroll at University of Wyoming.
-AP English Lit
-Advanced Art
-Chemistry 2 (AP level)
-Ap Gov't
College Classes:
-Calculus 3
-Applied Differential Equations
-Linear Algebra</p>
<p>Prospective Schools:
-UCSD
-UND (North dakota)
-Harvard
-Yale
-Princeton
-Caltech
-Mit
-U of Denver
-Carnegie Mellon</p>
<p>Ivies + MIT + Caltech not going to happen with that score. Did you mean 35? If your friend can raise that score 7 or more points, his chance will be much better. Though he'd probably be best to get involved in more EC's.</p>
<p>Well, you don't need 2200+, and a good deal of acceptees are below that, but it certainly makes thngs a lot easier.</p>
<p>Considering that GPA, which is quite good, I would put Carnegie Mellon at a reach (maybe a low reach, but probably not), and all the Ivies + MIT + CalTech at high reach. Your friend should apply to a decent and respectable but no uber-competitive school, like Case Western (example) or something of that caliber.</p>
<p>Fluent in German and Hebrew?? He should take the SAT Subject tests.</p>
<p>He seems like one smart, successful, promising applicant. Tell him to work on that reading/writing stuff. If he can get a 30 ACT (math will clearly not be a problem--reading and writing will just take work work work) then he should be in really really good shape.</p>
<p>He is native Chinese - right? Just been in US for 3 years? English is NOT his first language - it is a foreign language. The TOEFL is meant to help students whose first language is not English. My husband is Malaysian, and his entire schooling was in Malay, so he was not used to reading/writing/testing in English. He took the TOEFL. MIT took him based on his decent (but by no means outstanding) English SAT, very respectable TOEFL, and otherwise stellar qualifications. Non-native English speakers should not feel that fluency in English means they should be expected to get the 700+ scores on the SAT. It's hard enough for kids whose FIRST (only) language is English!</p>
<p>but giving that he's applying from the US and a US high school, it wouldn't hurt to underscore the fact that English is not his first language. You'd think a decent SAT would be enough, but my husband HAD that and he still thought it was to his advantage to take the TOEFL. I'm not sure how an admissions person would answer the question, but it seems like it could only help. In any case, I doubt he'd be expected by admissions people at ANY school to have top 1-2% scores on the English/Reading/Writing sections of test like the SAT or ACT.</p>
<p>My daughter took the ACT this year. In my opinion, three sections of that test are English/reading tests - even the science section is a test of your ability to READ selections of scientific writing, not a test of your science knowledge. So, even if he does really well on the math section, the other 3 sections could drag down his composite score. SAT might be better, since his math score wouldn't be grouped in with so many more mediocre scores (it might stand out more). </p>
<p>PS - I asked for my husband's opinion as a former international student and he said definitely take the TOEFL, even with your friend living in the US now.</p>
<p>ok. ive told him this stuff thus far. So assuming he does relatively well (as in for him) on the toefl, the sat, and the subject tests, what are his chances at the colleges listed above?</p>
<p>He's an amazing applicant. I think he should call the admissions office (once this year's admissions cycle is over) and ask whether he'd be considered an international or domestic applicant. Admissions is MUCH harder for international Chinese applicants :(</p>