please be honest(:

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>hi guys, i KNOW i shouldnt be making a chances thread (decision in 2 weeks) but i feel exceptionally nervous today so im going to go ahead and make one. please rate my application on a scale of 0 to 10 , 0 being no chance in hell and 10 being very likely (which aint gonna happen.)</p>

<p>-moved to California from Singapore in dec 2006  missed ½ of junior year
GPA(UW) : 3.67 (no weightage in senior year)
<em>note</em>
My grades (obviously) include quite a few Bs, but in singapore i was in one of the most competitive schools in the region, so well As were hard to come by. here, there has been a little bit of an adjustment problem with grading methods (i got 2 bs in my junior 2nd semsester).
SAT scores: 2200 total, 730 WR, 720 CR, 750 M
SAT2s: 800math2,750bio, 800 chem</p>

<p>ECs</p>

<p>9th and 10th grade
school newsletter(editor)
indian orchestra(violin)
teaching kids with lang barriers to read (4h/week)
teacher at local tuition centre (something like kumon i guess)
tutor(yes, all of us are tutors!)
student congress head of outreach
helped to set up international convention of youth leaders (a LOT bigger than you think, it was a whole load of work and GREAT for networking)
research during summer at Institute of molecular and cellular biology, working on virology(:
* at this point in time, I was trying to start my own charity to provide sanitation to slum dwellers in india, but well that kind of fell through because the Indian government wouldn’t give us the permits required…
11th grade
Smile Club (raising funds for 3rd world kids who need cleft lip surgeries)
Youth Action team (community service. shall explain later)
tutor
12th grade
Founder and prez Gyan Club (going to be expanded to whole district next year, hopefully)
(its a non-profit tutoring business that i started. we basically tutor local kids at 11bucks an hour and we use all our profits to sponsor street children in india. its like a direct relationship between each tutor and kid, and we currently sponsor around 21.tons of groundwork and promotions, but twas all SO worth it(: one of my essays is about this, only its kind of more about helping poor children and education but this is one of the main aspects of what i did to help.)</p>

<p>Youth Action Team Prez
(so the youth action team is a board of highschool students interviewed and selected to organize events that help the community remain drug free etc. its technically a job and everyone else gets paid 10.40 per hour for doing stuff like putting up POSTERS, but sadly enough i dont have a work visa so im doing it for the experience and the community service. i'll basically have like 400h at the end of the year, because we have so many all day events and stuff. really great people and fun experience. my <em>boss</em> wrote a stellar letter of rec for me, so YAY.)</p>

<p>Smile club vice prez</p>

<p>Model UN vice prez (its a club at our school, we dont have a class)</p>

<p>CSF(no idea if this has an impact)</p>

<p>research at University of Calif Irvine UCI
(biophysics, around 8h/week, one of my essays is about this(common app). its basically drug research about the phospholipid membrane in the lungs, and its characterizing the molecule to figure out how to make premature babies develop the membrane faster)</p>

<p>other classes:
french 3 at local community college
French 4/5 at local community college (going on right now)
physics 3A over summer at UCI (my prof invited me to be his research assistant)A
Multivariable calc @UCIB+ (long story, got a 93% though)</p>

<p>Essays:</p>

<p>-Extra essay: about my grandma’s death and the first few days after; its kind of abstract, I don’t know how they will perceive it.(explains horrible freshman grades – I got a C+ in geography)</p>

<p>-Common app EC essay: research</p>

<p>-common app main essay: why i started gyan club (told through recounting experiences, such as visiting india after many years and being struck by poverty there)</p>

<p>Recs:
- english and bio teachers, both very veryy good,
-councelor i thought was ok but i dont think that she could have said more (she talked about me moving),
- my boss at the youth action team (STELLAR)</p>

<p>so, what do you think? </p>

<p>thank you!!!!<3</p>

2

<p>I would be worried about gpa</p>

3

<p>coolkid, trust me, i AM worried >< </p>

<p>well i guess (as i told my interviewer) i dont believe in the conventional studying. in singapore, we were taught to preserve the integrity of education, and to never study for a test. Honestly, ive given up memorising and repetition altogether. i dont study for tests, because i study to learn and every test i take reflects information i hope i will carry for a loooong time(: i study for interest, not for a GPA: As are meaningless if you study all night and forget everything after a test.</p>

<p>so, yeah. i deserve what i got for not conforming>< haha(: oh wells.</p>

<p>anyways, could you gimme a number?</p>

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<p>just curious: doubleyou-tee-eff is "smile club"?</p>

<p>LOL</p>

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<p>haha we make people smile: we raise money for people who need cleft lip surgeries in 3rd world countries. thus (:</p>

<p>RATE MEEEE lol...</p>

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<p>rgal: </p>

<p>did you attend an international school ala UWC/SAS, or a junior college? if it's the latter, and you have more than 1 B on your A-level transcript/predicted grades, then i'm quite sure that it's going to be very very difficult. RJC alone has 60 perfect scorers this year, of which a significant proportion will apply to HYP.</p>

<p>if those Bs you mentioned occurred during internal assessments, then you probably shouldn't have included them in your application. as of 2 years ago, they didn't seem to be required.</p>

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<p>no, i attended RGS and i moved after sec4 to california, so i didnt take the As or the Os</p>

<p>the bs occured during internal exams(:</p>

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<p>ahh, sorry, my bad at not reading carefully ;p</p>

<p>not that i go/will go to harvard, but your justification for getting Bs in singapore is that there was a tough grading system in place, and your reasoning behind getting Bs in the states is because you hadn't gotten used to the system there? sounds somewhat logical to me, but who knows how much the colleges will buy it...</p>

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<p>@rgal</p>

<p>that's actually what i guessed it was, based off of project smile right?</p>

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<p>I wanted to start a project smile club at my school since I wanted to go into dentistry but too bad I could never find some teacher to sponsor it. Did you speak english while you were in singapore?</p>

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<p>thanks serf, hopefully they'll see the logic.honestly, all my grades are NOT the result of effort put in to get them. they really reflect how much info i was able to internalize, because i really DONT study for tests....so i guess i deserve what i get? haha(:</p>

<p>RBallard, yup based off smile train</p>

<p>Hamman, my teacher started the club a few years ago! its because of him its still surviving, seriously, all the people used to do last year was just sit around. ive <em>tried</em> to make a difference, and we've raised a ton of money this year, so YAY!!! but its kind of hard, you know? especially when the president is some popular sophmore who brought TWENTY friends to "join" the club on election day and has since done nothing. sigh. oh wells, we'll see...</p>

<p>and yes, english is my first language. i was born in india, and went to singapore at 7, but english has always been the language i communicate in. i am fluent in hindi, french (kind of, i have my days of fluency!:P) , tamil (i cant write though) and a bunch of smaller indian languages like malayalam and gujerati. but really, i wanna study chinese SO BADD, so i plan to do it over the comming summer(:</p>

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<p>guys please rate me? thanks(: i dont want to think i have a chance when i really dont...</p>

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<p>^^ Lol. It's probably best to THINK that you don't have any chance. Then, if you get rejected, you won't be too disappointed, and if you get accepted, you'll be super-ecstatic. Worked for me for EA admissions to other schools. Though then again, it's really a win-win situation. I highly suggest expecting rejection :-). Not saying you're an awful applicant - I haven't really read your whole post and have no base for judgment. Just, why not expect 0% chance, and be pleasantly surprised (or, not disappointed)?</p>

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<p>Your EC's are very good, but I don't know if you'll cut it academically. You probably have a chance that's a shade above average, maybe 12-15%.</p>

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<p>thank you! lalaloo, yes, that is very very wise. shall keep that in mind. see, i KNOW i have no chance, but seriously, can you help hoping just a teeny weeny bit? you know?</p>

<p>innervisions, thanks so much(: yes, i know, i havent done much to proove my academic worthyness. i guess i deserve that. its just, you know, when you put things in perspective, grades really dont matter as much as learning....im SERIOUSLY paying for that attitude, but i think its part of my morals, and so i cant comprimise it. argh, maybe i should have taken the SATs again? i totally didnt even open a practice book....sigh. oh wells.</p>

<p>also, in case it matters, i told my interviewer exactly WHY i wantedto go to harvard, and she wrote it down: it opens doors, and i can USE their resources to make a difference. i want to found/join an NGO after im done with college. harvard can open doors in 3rd world countries to get influence with the government, and things of that sort. while at harvard, the HUGE amount of $$ given to students to fund projects can help me get started with this goal(:</p>

<p>thanks tons for chancing me!keep those guesses comming ><</p>

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<p>also, do any harvard students want to read my grandma essay? it kind of uses stream of conciousness, and i think it <em>may</em> be a little abstract. could you help out?</p>

<p>thanks(:</p>

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<p>bumppp ..... ....</p>