<p>Um, I feel like I have to mention that the stats Flippy listed are mine. I usually don't (okay, next to never) post in others' chances threads, but I will since I guess I'm involved anyways. UC admissions are highly mathematical; about 50% are accepted into UCB every year purely based on the numbers alone. That being said, your numbers put you in the competitive arena, but I'd draw the line at saying they'll get you in by themselves. The other 50%, as you can imagine, are accepted due to a combination of all the factors: your transcript, standardized testing scores, essays, and ec's. Keep in mind that the transcript comes foremost for admission into any competitive school in the nation. Now, I'm not sure about ec's for UCs because I haven't really researched them in-depth, but remember to do things because you love them, not because you want a flashy resume. Trust me, colleges can see through that. Everything I've done, I do because I want to. I'd like to one day start a nonprofit hospital for homeless children in China, and if you look at my ec's again, you'll see that I'm working towards that. You mentioned that the kids most likely made fun of me after I left, but I ask you, did you actually see them? I can honestly say that it was one of my life-changing events. Teaching students like them who were so incredibly hard-working, the best of the best, yet who were doomed by their blue collar status to the same lives their parents led, truly motivated me. If you could have seen the way they were willing to go to school voluntarily in the summer, sit in the 100+ degree weather because the room had no fans or air conditioning, show up even an hour early so they wouldn't be late, and try, you would say otherwise. Were they rowdy? Yes, at times. Did I always get 100% from every one of them? No, of course not. But did I see improvement in them? Definitely. Quick digression: This one girl from a peasant family in class always sat in the front of the class and paid rapt attention to me, but never spoke in class activities. I spoke to her privately during a break and asked her why she wouldn't participate, and she told me that she didn't believe she was up to par with the other students, seeing as how she picked up all the English she knew from her cousins. I'm not quite sure how what I said affected her as much as it did, but she put her faith in me when I reassured her that everyone was there to improve, and mistakes were perfectly acceptable. She blossomed, she flourished, and the trust, the faith she placed in what I said changed my life. At the end of the term, she gave me a gift of four red dragons carved from tissue paper. I never realized how much time they required until the principal was amazed at the gift, as it required painstaking effort, effort from a girl who would never be able to enjoy half the things I take for granted.</p>
<p>Anyways, back to the topic. Ec's are a lot less about how many you do than how much you accomplish, how much you put forth. Is there really that big of a difference between 300 hours and 400 hours? Not really, but there is a drastic difference between if you were checking people in at the hospital for 400 hours or if you revamped the computer system so that it became a lot more efficient in 100 hours.</p>
<p>Second of all, you have to realize that this is CC. The vast majority of people here are hard-working and ambitious, and while your stats may be amazing for someone at your school, they may not be on par with the best of the best in the nation (which mine are not either). I have to agree with what's been said before; a lot of your "amazing" ec's have been done before. I realize that you have your whole football-player/boy-scout argument, and that is valid, for I know that a Harvard acceptee from my school two years ago was the football team captain and the poetry club president. However, he was also incredibly smart, so keep that in mind as you apply for colleges. Colleges see thousands of "city's youth council members" and "CSF members." They want passion, dedication, success. 12 from your city is great, but how about 12 in the county, the state, the country?</p>
<p>I acknowledge that CCers are a bit tough when it comes to evaluating chances, but that's because we've all become jaded by everything that's happened. When I first joined CC a year ago, I thought being in KEY Club was absolutely the most fabulous thing in the world. I too had been under the impression that a 4.0 and 2400 gave you an extremely high chance at HYPSM. However, in asking for chances here, you have to take this account. It's not "giving [you] crap", it's being brutally honest from what we've seen here.</p>
<p>Btw, please spell the schools you're applying to right. It's STANFORD.</p>