Need to narrow down my final college app list

<p>As you may figure, I need some chance =) </p>

<p>I've done this before, but I just got a unique perspective on what the holistic approach for admissions is like for students who have studied abroad. Having said that, I will include what my contextualized transcript looks like.</p>

<p>Semester 2 of Freshman Year (Studied at Miami Beach Senior High)
February 2005-June 2005</p>

<p>Health I/Life Management Skills: B
Personal Fitness: A
Language Arts: C (argh, I'll explain)
Individual and Dual Sports: B
Team Sports I: A
Business Systems and Technology: A</p>

<p>Brazilian Transcript for Year 1 and 2 of high school there:
September 2005-November 2006</p>

<p>Year 1</p>

<p>Biology: 96
Physical Education: 82
Physics: 85
Geography: 96
History: 90
English: 100
Brazilian Literature: 92
Mathematics: 98
Portuguese: 85
Chemistry: 91
Art: 100</p>

<p>Year 2</p>

<p>Biology: 92
Physical Education: 98
Physics: 94
Geography: 98
History: 90
Spanish: 85
Brazilian Literature: 88
Mathematics: 96
Portuguese: 86</p>

<p>Official HS Transcript with transferred credits for my current HS for all classes up until January 2007:</p>

<p>Algebra I Honors: A
Health I/Life Management Skills: B
Language Arts Transfer: C
Personal Fitness: A
Individual and Dual Sports: B
Team Sports I: A
Business Systems and Technology: A
Art Transfer: A
Spanish Speaker I: A
English I: A
Algebra II Honors: A
Phys. Ed. Transfer: B
Biology I: A
Physical Sciences: B
World Culture Geography: A
Spanish Speaker II: B
English II: A
Geometry Honors: A
Biology II: A
Chemistry I: A
Physics I: A
World History: A</p>

<p>My report card for Semester 2 of Junior Year (Jan 2007-June 2007):</p>

<p>AP US History: B
American Gov't Honors: A
AP Chemistry: B
Pre-Calculus: A
AP Eng. Language: A
Economics Honors: A
Driver's Ed Class/Lab: A</p>

<p>GPA U: 3.7381
GPA W: 3.9643
Top 10% of Class (0020/0368)</p>

<p>School type: Slightly competitive, can't get my rank up more because all the IB students had Honors/AP classes shoved into them throughout freshman-senior years, I was in Brazil and couldn't do that.</p>

<p>Awards/EC:
- Outstanding Economics Honors Student (I took econ as a junior, usually awarded to seniors as it's a senior class - teacher made an exception as I was the best econ student she ever had)</p>

<ul>
<li>Founder and administrator of popular tech website, <a href="http://www.aeroxp.org%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.aeroxp.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li>
</ul>

<p>Current SAT I 1790
CR: 630
M: 570
W: 590 , Essay 7</p>

<p>Projected SAT I ~= 2200-2300
CR: 800
M: 750
W: 730</p>

<p>Projected SAT II
Math IIC: 750
Literature: 800
US History: 750</p>

<p>Recs: Amazing, My econ teacher says she'll be honored to write me a recommendation to the colleges I want to apply to, same goes for my English and most other teachers. </p>

<p>Now, there are a few factors to this. I did poorly on the SATs, and am still going to take the subjects as I didn't feel ready for them. I re-took the SAT Reasoning in October, and am confident I did very well. I breezed through the test with no problems whatsoever, and constructed a very solid essay. I was abroad in Brazil for 4 years, so I had some transfer credits that ended up messed up but this was the best my counselor could do for me. So I have spoken to lots of adcoms, and they told me that I should include a copy of my official transcript for my school in Brazil within my application that there are people specialized in reading international transcripts. Hence, I will do so - include both my official HS transcript with how they "transferred" my credits, and also my Brazilian school transcript as I noted above. Also, the transfer language arts credit with a C is because of the fact that at Miami Beach Sr. High, I got in mid-March and the 9-week period was about to be over. I was none the wiser and got an F for that 9-week period in English, and an A in the concurrent 9-week period which ended up as a C. Guess it doesn't matter now, but big screw-up to just overlook it at the time (I had no idea how these things worked back then, and how my grades would later haunt me).</p>

<p>Semester 1:
AP US History
AP Eng Languages
AP Eng Literature
AP Environmental Sciences
IB Theory of Knowledge
AP Calculus AB
AP Psychology</p>

<p>Semester 2:
(Dual Enrollment) Statistics I
(Dual Enrollment) Microeconomics
AP Eng Literature
AP Environmental Sciences
AP Calculus AB
Honors Research (filler class for those who take TOK 1st semester)
AP Psychology</p>

<p>Now, my first semester has English and US History again because I only did one semester of Junior year since I was in Brazil until January this year, hence I need the full credit.</p>

<p>I am going to re-take the SATs. I hope to take my scores up to at least 750-ish on each section, and I'm hoping to take the Math II/Lit/US Hist subject tests and get at least a 750-ish in each of those, too. I've been doing lots of prep over the summer and my practice test are all coming out around those scores.</p>

<p>My ECs and awards are not really up there because I had no chance of getting them - in the Brazilian school system there is no such thing as awards or EC opportunities, I've only been in the U.S. for high school this last junior semester and one semester of freshman year. My traveling kind of got in the way of my school curriculum; unfortunately I couldn't do much about it.</p>

<p>I'm a first generation college student, and come from a pretty low income household (< 20k/year). I'm an American born citizen but my parents were naturally born Brazilian and are now naturalized Americans. I'd like my chance with the current scores and then the projected scores if you all would be so kind =).</p>

<p>Applying to:</p>

<p>NYU (Stern)
Columbia
Cornell (ILR)
UPenn (Wharton)
CUNY-Baruch
Boston College
University of South Carolina (Moore)
Florida International University
University of Florida (Warrington)</p>

<p>Could anyone chance me there, and tell me maybe some I should add in or take out? I really want to be in NYC and I was mesmerized with NYU. It's my number one choice, if I could get in :/. Any opinons/suggestions are welcome, please be harsh and consider my context.</p>

<p>You seem to be far too overconfident on your SAT improvement. I happened to do very well on the ACT (34), took the SAT and thought it was even easier, and ended up with a 1920. So for you to be predicting that you got a 2200+ after a 1790 is a bit irrational. Don’t be shocked if you don’t do nearly as well as you expect, but best of luck anyway.</p>

<p>As for what schools you’re in at with current scores or only a slight improvement, definately Florida International, probably Baruch College, possibly SC, Florida, BC… The other ones even if you got a near perfect SAT you would still only be a maybe too, as it stands 1 in a million shot. </p>

<p>I would suggest looking at something like Fordham if you want to go to college in NY, far more realistic than NYU…</p>

<p>Good luck and congratulations on your success so far.</p>

<p>Thanks =) I realize my chances for any of the first 4 are really slim, and practically non-existant with my current SAT scores. Hopefully I will be able to bring my score up to at least a 2000 on my SATs, I’m hoping I can. I did study like a madman, took practice tests nearly every day. The only one I really want to attend is NYU, I was there and loved it. </p>

<p>Also, I’d like to have UF as a “safey/match”-ish, I’d like to know opinions on that. I’m in-state (Florida), so I think that improves chances somewhat. Overall, does anyone know what the business scene is like at UF for students wanting to go into I-Banking?</p>

<p>Anyways, thank you =)</p>

<p>Please, chance? :/</p>

<p>As of now, your first four college choices are REJECTS.</p>

<p>I don’t trust the projection of your new SAT score because it is what you think it is, not what it actually is.</p>