Ivies and Top Colleges - Are these enough?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hey guys!

I’m new to this forum and would be much obliged if you could chance me for top Ivies. Stanford is my reach school (along with Princeton, Yale, Harvard). Not really interested in MIT/CIT.

Here are my details/qualifications

Homeschooled
Junior
Asian Male, Income bracket <$80K, live in California Silicon Valley

Scores:
GPA: 4.0
Weighted: 4.9? I’m homeschooled and consider a lot of my classes as honors, and GPA for homeschoolers dont matter much to colleges. They tend to look more at test scores.
SAT Physics - 800
SAT Math 2 - 800
Aiming for 1550 on SAT 1, will take in December
PSAT in sophomore year 1450, new PSAT scores havent come out yet (hopefully NMSQT)
APs - MicroE - 5, Physics - 5, Macro E- 4 (-_-), AP Eng Lang - 4

Special Stuff:

7th Place in North America in a 1 million player global video game tournament (Clash Royale CCGS). Not sure how much this helps, and not sure how many people participated in NA (probably at least 100K). Won $3000

Aiming for F=MA Silver or Gold this year
Organized and taught three science camps (total around 25 kids)
Tutored for around 3 years
Coach basketball for kids
Starting a kids club (nonprofit) that I hope can grow to over 100 members with youth teachers by next fall, here is the website. I work with other youth teachers to teach club, will be organizing a STEM fair as well as putting on a physics show in January for it.
http://futurerocketscientists.weebly.com/

Estimated 400 hours volunteer by junior year

Work around 10-15 hours a week at Chik Fil A (for the experience)

I know I don’t have spectacular EC’s or anything, I’m really counting on growing the club to show some leadership in my college apps. If I could organize science fairs, shows, and camps hopefully that shows something =)

Weak Areas:
Essays. I’m not horrible at essays, but I’m nowhere near good. Hopefully I’ll be able to write a good essay for my college apps

If you guys could tell me how I’m doing, what I should work on, and what schools might admit me I’d be much obliged!! :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

2

I don’t see a huge differentiator. I would call all of these schools reaches for you.

3

Have you broken out where your time actually goes? From here, your ECs & ‘special stuff’ look very ‘normal’ - but not more than that. I can’t see where you really invest actual time.

400 hours of volunteer service sounds like a lot- but if you break it down over 3 years it is 133 hours/ year or 2.5 hours / week year round. You do have 10-15 hours a week of actual work which helps, but I don’t see how you spend your time in the summer (3 camps for 5 kids each =/= a packed summer.

As a homeschooler you don’t lose all the time that in-school students do. The in-school students that I know at these schools typically have a lot of things to show for how they spend their time. Your biggest one is a video game tournament.

By your own account your ECS are not ‘spectacular’ and your essay skills are ‘nowhere near good’. You have some good test scores. Try turning your question around: you know that you are smart, and you know that you want to go to very fancy name schools, but what do you bring to the campus of that fancy name school? what makes you stand out?

4

For most schools, your record looks pretty darn good. For HYPS, not as much. Part of the problem is that you are home schooled. What was your GPA and course rigor compared to others in your school? Who knows? Nothing to be ashamed of with 4s on AP, but 4s on AP will not serve you well as a validation of the meaning of your GPA at the tippy top schools you aspire to. Since you’re a junior, and still have some time, I think that the single best thing you could do to improve your chances at HYPS would be to take at least one challenging seminar style college course at one of the respected universities in your area with a reputaiton for excellence (in other words, something other than an unknown CC) and get an A and a great recommendation from the professor.

5

So what other schools are on your list because you know these are all reaches despite your impressive academic accomplishments? They are for everyone.

6

@collegemom3717 Yes, that is true. I spend around 10 hours a day on school - My course load this year is Calculus, Weights Training, Physics Mechanics and E&M, AP Chinese, AP Computer Science, AP English literature

I spend 2 hours a day prepping for the SAT as well.

I spend around 5 hours a week planning kids club, 2 hours a week coaching basketball

I play basketball and work part time around 10 hours a week
Waste a couple hours a day on gaming and youtube -_-

7

@doschicos Honestly I’m not sure. I mainly want to get into these top schools due to their great financial aid combined with their reputation. I guess a fall back would be Santa Clara or Calpoly, or maybe UCs. I think Berkeley may be a good match. I know all the schools I mentioned are reaches for me

8

@tdy123 I take Calc at De Anza Community College. Hopefully I can get a good rec from the teacher

9

The “where is your time” is ridiculous. If you are dirty rich and have nothing to do at home, and are a robot with no social life or friends and family to support, don’t commute, relax, take “me time” and eat, then you can work 16 hours a day 7 days in a week, sure.

Such an attitude, of demanding this much work, only shows immaturity. But I don’t know. Maybe America or Ivies are full of immature people, I won’t dany they can.

You don’t waste your time on gaming and youtube, you take time off. If you’re human, you need it. I find it impressive how much you work anyway. If not for the gaming, you could probably lose your sanity or just health :smiley: I’ve seen that happen. Really. Not once. On a macro scale. If you’re a normal and socially and emotionally functional person to begin with, of course. couch couch, dark side of ambition and top schools

Another issue is that gaming and youtube may not be the most clever forms of relax or not the most healthy or productive. Um, I would throw it out of the resume, even if you are a champion.

10

Well, the post right above isn’t making any sense to me. :-/

OP, you’re just a junior so you have time but work on developing a complete list of schools you would like to attend including safeties and matches. There are plenty of schools a notch below the reaches you have listed that are excellent and would be happy to have you. Many provide good need based aid as well.

11

Bad for you if something makes “no sense” to you. The isn’t even a constructive opening for discussion.

12

@doschicos thanks for your replies :slight_smile: I think some good matches will be Berkeley or UCLA (I know a lot of homeschooled friends there.) It’s just always been a dream of my parents and mine to go to Stanford; perhaps I just dream too big :frowning:

13

@RebeccaJay At first I thought you were slamming me with the “where your time is going is ridiculous” in the beginning of your post lol. I definitely agree youtube and gaming are not the healthiest ways of relaxing, nor are they the most productive by any means. I’m trying to channel more of my leisure time into work/finding internships as well as sports. I play around 5 hours of basketball a week

It’s definitely true that many homeschoolers are socially awkward, and I would even perhaps consider myself to be slightly on the socially awkward side :stuck_out_tongue:

14

You are an Asian male. So the bar for you is higher. You are competing for 7% of the class in HYPS against other Asian males who likely have similar stats. As always, identify some reaches, matches and safeties. Lots of great applicants wind up on the cutting room floor because they don’t stand out in some way. Also, as Asian male, you will need to come across as very likeable.

15

@preppedparent thanks for the info. Do you think I should go really bold and personal in my essay or more formal and detached? I was wondering if I should show a ton of personality in my essayu

16

Why not Caltech? Apparently you are interested in STEM, and Caltech does not discriminate against Asians … actually with 40% Asian population, it may be discriminating against other races. Can’t say about being Male, since they are trying to improve gender ratio.

Opposite to other posters, I think you should emphasize your video gaming achievements, especially the Clash Royale competition win. People who haven’t played video games don’t know how much time and talent is required to excel at these games. Video gaming supremacy is a badge of honor for Computer Science or Engineering students. Check out schools like UC Irvine, which actually recruits video gamers. Or USC, which has a “Computer Science/Games” degree.

17

Imo, your first problem is you don’t seem to know what places like Stanford or Ivies “look for.” So you can’t stand back and assess your match,
nor fine tune your activities.

It seems most of your ECs are with younger kids. What about activities with peers, that collaboration? And breadth/depth?

Gaming is downtime, a hobby (ish. Winning $ isn’t a tip.) It will help with tippy tops to have math-science ECs (the point isn’t leadership titles, but leader thinking, how you challenge yourself.)

Think about it.
No problem being Asian American. But how you pull this together matters.

  • oops, meant As-Am and home schooled. That's a bit of it's own diversity. But you still need the right presentation.
18

@ACEPLUS Bold and personal for sure. Don’t give them any excuse to hide behind the holistic approach and say you’re too cooky cutter and aren’t interesting, just score mongers.

19

@bogeyorpar I’m not so interested in the Technology and Engineering (which Caltech mostly revolves around) in STEM. I’m more interested in the Science and Math part of it. I really like physics (too bad not that many career options) and math. Maybe business as well.

20

@preppedparent thanks for the advice