<p>Hi College Confidential, this is my first post. Hopefully I do this right.</p>
<p>Now that college admission season is nearly here, I'm getting scared that my list of schools is too full of reaches. I have solid(ish) numbers, but rather weak/boring/strange ECs.
Also, I'm between engineering and physics as a major. A couple of schools I'm applying to offer engineering physics as a major though, huzzah!
And I'm an Asian girl (ORM blech).
Well here we go. Some things will be speculative though; I can't definitively see into the future for the extracurriculars.</p>
<p>**Schools<a href="Perhaps%20too%20many?%20I%20really%20do%20like%20them%20all.%20Any%20and%20all%20suggestion%20would%20be%20welcome.">/b</a>
MIT (for the lolz), UChicago, Barnard, Case Western Reserve, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Cornell, Harvey Mudd, Brown, UPenn, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, Tufts, Northwestern</p>
<p>Numbers
SAT I
2260 superscore - 780 CR, 720M, 760W
(Math is low for what I want to do, I know. I really don't think I can get it higher though, so not going to retake.)
First take (2190) - 730CR, 720M, 740W
Second take (2240) - 780CR, 700M, 760W</p>
<p>SAT II
Biology E - 730
Taking Math II and Physics in September.</p>
<p>GPA (My school only does weighted GPAs, and I can't find my grades from previous years to calculate unweighted, sorry.)</p>
<h2>Cumulative - 4.38</h2>
<p>Freshman - 4.11
Sophomore - 4.21
Junior - 4.82 (somehow got straight As this past year...)</p>
<p>APs
Lang/Comp - 5
Bio - 5</p>
<p>**Extracurricular<a href="unfocused%20and%20weak,%20I%20know.">/b</a>
Editor of school's art and literary magazine (junior and senior year, member for four years)
Varsity shotput and discus thrower (soph-senior year, most likely will be captain next year)
Writing Center Peer tutor (soph-senior year)
Science League (freshman-senior year, have placed regionally as a team twice)
Science NHS
NHS
Lifeguard (fresh-soph summers)
Volunteer with American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
Just finished six week summer session at Boston University (A in Statistics, A- in Geology)
This sounds really stupid, but I also run a science/math/personal tumblr (blog). The people I've met through tumblr have really influenced me in terms of seeing math and science as beautiful. This probably would only come up in an interview though.</p>
<p>Etc
I go to a public school in New Jersey that sends one or two kids to Ivies a year. </p>
<p>I won't be applying for financial aid. </p>
<p>I've taken all honors/AP classes except for my world language. My senior year classes are BC Calc, Honors Engineering, CompSci, AP Physics, AP Lit/Comp, and Chinese (not a native speaker).</p>
<p>Rec letters will likely be from my Honors Physics teacher who adored me (ending with a 97 might help as well...) and AP Lang teacher (although she would rather me become a writer, haha). I have two possible, already revised CommonApp essays written and plan to write one more incorporating quantum mechanics stuff.</p>
<p>I know a lot of my extracurriculars aren't really geared towards science, but I spend a lot of my free time learning about quantum mechanics, particle physics, and engineering. I really don't know how to express that to the AdComs though...</p>
<p>As you probably see, I'm not really the best candidate for engineering/physics, but it's what I'm the most interested in and devoted to. I'm hoping that my creativity and passion will shine through in my letters/essays/interviews. Otherwise, I'm really not interesting at all, which is why I'm worried.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>To be honest, I won't be too crushed by any specific rejection as long as I get into at least one of my schools. Feel free to be as harsh as you want!</p>
<p>Welp this was ridiculously long, sorry. Thoughts anyone? Suggestions about additions/deletions from my college list are also welcome.</p>