<p>Blah. I hate cluttering up a perfectly nice message board with this kind of thread, since it's probably only useful to me, but I figure that if no one's complaining, I might as well post...</p>
<p>Basic Stats:
[ul]
[<em>] SATs: 690/760/800 the first time, 800/800/780 the second (the first time I almost passed out during the test because I didn't eat beforehand...I suppose I had decent scores, even so...)
[</em>] SAT IIs: 800 Math IIC, 800 Chem
[<em>] GPA: 4.3W, don't know UW but probably somewhere in the vicinity of 4
[</em>] APs: 5 AP Chemistry, 5 AP English, 5 AP European History
[/ul]</p>
<p>ECs:
[ul]
[<em>] President of Junior State of America (political organization)
[</em>] Co-Editor-in-Chief of school newspaper
[<em>] Mock Trial witness/former attorney
[</em>] JETS team member - team scored #1 in state and #8 nationally in division
[<em>] NHS treasurer
[</em>] Placed in top 10% in ACS Chemistry Olympiad, but two seniors from my school also placed in the top 10%, so I didn't go on
[/ul]</p>
<p>Work Experience:
[ul]
[<em>] Work at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University...do some basic programming type things, but also some more interesting theoretical things
[</em>] Briefly did contract work for PGP Corporation...still technically on contract but not really doing much anymore
[<em>] Community service tech work at local food pantry, community technology center
[</em>] Released various software projects of my own, although some of them stopped working because I haven't been maintaining them...hope that won't hurt me...
[/ul]</p>
<p>Other Activities:
[ul]
[<em>] Presented a paper on the future of technology at a conference in Newfoundland at age 13
[</em>] Took neuroscience at Brown University last summer
[/ul]</p>
<p>Projected major would be Computation and Neural Systems...</p>
<p>Unfortunately, my calc BC grade might end up being a B+, but I got an A+ in math last year...I hope that won't hurt too much...</p>
<p>B+ in calc would hurt. Rest is fine, not amazingly outstanding. The activities are nontrivial, but it is important that we can see that you got something out of them -- talk about any scientific passion they sparked, etc. That is to say, #1 in state in JETS won't get you in by itself, but if you write an awesome essay about how that or some other math/science involvement/activity/academic experience woke up some kind of spark in you, then the achievement itself will also become more impressive. </p>
<p>So, yes, I think you have a lot to build on with your activities. Now convert that into some kind of compelling story. The grades and scores are generally good. If you squeak by with an A- in Calc BC, things look fairly happy (you are competetive in the pool, which is already quite a strong statement). A B+ would make it more of a borderline case, so you have to go all out on the rest to make someone fall in love with you.</p>
<p>[Hmm... I make it seem like we're pretty harsh about not-A's in things like math and physics. I guess that's because it's true. I mean, we regularly admit people with a B+ here and there, even in science, but that makes it more of an uphill battle. On the other hand, maybe it's good for people to know that, because when you know you're on the borderline it's much harder to convince yourself to submit some boring nonsense as an essay -- you work harder at the rest of the things now under your control, and often that is what it takes to get in.]</p>
<p>Posts like this make me wonder how I got in -- I mean, he basically has the same stats as me (though I pull A+s easily in math in my wonderfully rural school)... And I definately wrote about being a Camp Counselor, not about science in my essays... And you're saying he's a borderline case? I wonder how "borderline" a case I was...</p>
<p>Well, there are many factors that go into any application, and obviously one can never say how a particular case will go. But my talk about showing a passion for science is particularly emphasized above because the person asking may have a suboptimal grade in a math/science course. People who pull straight A+'s obviously have a slightly better start than those who don't. (Though we do always pay attention to the context.)</p>