<p>lellis, are your friends studying natural and social sciences? i notice from your other posts that you're in experimental psychology. admissions standards at cambridge for internationals are very different from those at oxford. (oxford takes 25-30 americans a year. cambridge takes 3-5.) the same is true within both schools for arts vs. sciences.</p>
<p>as i pointed out in my post, my experience is solely with cambridge. the op's mileage will certainly vary.</p>
<p>hey my friend goes to saratoga & u guys have similar stats..i wonder if you are my friend</p>
<p>Money is not an issue; I'm very fortunate that my parents have allocated about 400k for me and my brother. </p>
<p>I didnt know about that other exam though... And I didnt know they would so specialized. I'm mainly considering LSE but I'm not 100% sure about econ and the uk schools are only if I dont get into ivys/stanford/MIT so yea..</p>
<p>As for APs, I probably got 5s on Bio and Physics but most likely a 4 on US History.. But I'm taking 6 more this year..</p>
<p>Here are my grades:</p>
<p>Thank you for the information! I definitely didn't know that!</p>
<p>mls1007, do you go to toga or MV?? :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
the uk schools are only if i don't get into ivys/stanford/mit
[/quote]
</p>
<p>this sentence should come only from a resident of the uk. oxford and cambridge are not safety schools except for what mit refers to as "academic stars." are you going to rsi? have you been in an international olympiad? oxbridge is not a safety.</p>
<p>oh dude i know that it's just by preference that i would rather stay in the U.S. but i would not like to go to a UC.. most likely my chance of getting into uk schools is less than for american schools.. </p>
<p>sorry if that came out weird..</p>
<p>and with reference to your "academics stars," do i need to be one to get into MIT?</p>
<p>I'm aware that I am VERY VERY FAR from being an "academic star"</p>
<p>swoop I think you need to have a safety or two in addition to your current list. Remember, that Naviance and various other sources for acceptance stats will be based on 2008 numbers. 2009 applicants will have an even harder time because the number of applicants will be higher. This was a mistake that we made last year.</p>
<p>o please, your a star, the diffidence is saccharine</p>
<p>drdom, i understand what you are saying but i'm doing this based on data from 2005-2008.. every year there are more applicants; can it really change THAT much??</p>
<p>i just want to say it's awesome that you're taking chinese!
where i live, everyone who takes chinese as a language is a native speaker, and the majority of them just moved to the united states a few years ago.
jia you~!</p>
<p>xie xie, parasouls :)</p>
<p>but yea i'm the only one in my grade who is a non-native speaker, albeit people have been INSPIRED (jk) :] by me and now there are 8 non native speakers for the incoming freshman year. </p>
<p>but seriously, do you guys think a Chinese essay, sent in as supplementary material, would help me a bit, considering that I have no Oriental ancestors whatsoever...</p>
<p>also, should i mention that i've been learning arabic/farsi, spanish, and swahili on my own?? (don't worry i'm not a freak who does all the ECs and coursework that I do and still has this kind of time during the year; i only do it for fun over winter/summer breaks)</p>
<p>swoop - To be safe you must assume that 2008 data will reflect the stats of 2008 applicants. As the applicant pool increases (as it will for the 2009 class), then selective schools will become more selective. Therefore, plan on the 2005-2008 data being off somewhat and therefore add an extra safety or two. You won't believe this until you go through it like we did.</p>
<p>okay will do
Thanks :)</p>
<p>How do these sound:
UCSC (my dad has TAUGHT here)
UCSD</p>
<p>also, should i retake the reasoning?? i know 96th percentile for 710 isn't that bad but I think I can do well since i got 5 wrong while some of my friends got 4 wrong and still mustered a 760 in october... </p>
<p>most of the private schools I have been looking through have a mid 50% range of 700-800 so I am near the bottom :(</p>
<p>ok i didn't bother reading all of these threads, so if someone has said this ... sorry. There's no need to take so many SAT II's. You clearly are showing a variety of coureses with a language, math and 2 sciences. But I guess it's too late. Your top scores will be taken, so it's not going to hurt you or anything, but that's just crazy. I've never seen 7 of them. 3 will suffice anywhere.</p>
<p>swoop: you do not need to be an academic star to get into mit. if you are an academic star, you will get into mit. the converse is not true at all as 1) there are not enough academic stars to fill mit's freshman class and 2) some of those academic stars prefer caltech, harvard, etc.</p>
<p>rob22: there are many circumstances in which it would be wise to take many sat ii's. i've taken 6. this is because i attend a school which has an unusual curriculum and doesn't give out conventional grades. some colleges, notably columbia, will actually require you to take 5-6 sat ii's if you go to an experimental school (such as mine). almost all require many sat ii's or a similar number of ap tests if you are homeschooled.</p>
<p>prelude to actual chances:</p>
<p>admission to "ivy plus" schools is a lottery. that said, you are holding a better than average number of lottery tickets. i'm not concerned about your reading score on the sat i in the context of your writing score, which should prove your verbal ability is good. i am concerned about your gpa and the lack of honors courses before your junior year, as well as your relatively low grades soph year. why weren't you taking honors? was it offered? </p>
<p>i like your ec's a lot, but don't list so many. most of them seem superficial. do you have any major awards for model un, interact, or your mandarin organization? make sure to indicate the level of competition for each award in your application and any supplements. </p>
<p>i really, really like your language work, but i have no way to evaluate your knowledge of farsi, etc. other than your say-so. do you have a way to prove your competency in these to a committee? i have a similar issue and am submitting a supplement of translation into my language. could you try something similar with a piece of famous text, your own essay, etc? </p>
<p>princetoni think that your knowledge of multiple languages will be a definite plus at princeton (your profile screams "woody woo" to me), but the fact that you waited so long to take econ is a definite minus. why was this? were you just exploring other interests? i would definitely write about international relations in the princeton-specific essay.</p>
<p>harvard: harvard is harvard and no one knows what happens there, but again, you have an above average chance.</p>
<p>stanford: i'm not sure what attracts you to stanford. i don't know a massive amount about international relations departments, but stanford is not whispering "foreign affairs! foreign affairs!" in my ear. (then again condi rice was its provost.) unless you have a reason beyond "it's prestigious," i would advise against applying.</p>
<p>mit: why do you have no math/science extracurriculars? is the question i'm imagining the mit admissions people asking. unless you have a serious outside interest in math or science i think anyone's chances of admission to mit are virtually nil. moreover, most of your ec's center around languages and ir. why do you think you would enjoy heavy-duty math and physics at mit?</p>
<p>yale: i could know more about yale but i don't think this is an ir powerhouse either. on the other hand it definitely is a history powerhouse, so at least it's strong in an allied field. languages of course go without saying. (do you know that if you want to take a language that isn't offered at yale the university will actually find you a tutor and pay him/her to teach you the language? i'm also a language person and i think that's about the sweetest perk ever.) i would peg you at a chance better than for harvard but not as strong as for princeton.</p>
<p>columbia, chicago: i don't get why you're applying here. yes, econ at chicago and ir at columbia are stellar departments. but your lowest grades are in history and english! and both of them have monster core curricula that are mainly social science and english! lesser chance at these.</p>
<p>thank you guys, especially philoglossia!!</p>
<p>I took the most honors offered for sophomore year (Besides Chinese 4 Honors, but that wasn't an option since i'm not Chinese). Unfortunately, I'm not "ahead" in math like most applicants so my sophomore math class doesn't even count for honors credit AND I realized that i'm not the type to do math extracurriculars. Since I moved at the beginning of my sophomore year, i kind of experimented with extracurriculars and stuck with model un, chinese, and interact. </p>
<p>sadly, i have no awards whatsoever, but i'm going to panama in three weeks through interact (I'm the only guy in the group of people going) so I guess that's my supplement.. I will try to organize a huge conference at my high school for Model UN, but again, no awards...</p>
<p>for the langauge part, that's what i was thinking.. colleges might think i'm just BSing so i was thinking of writing some essays in Chinese and Arabic.. I'm assuming they will trust that I know Hindi and I know very little Swahili and Spanish (just basic conversations through Level 2 RosettaStone) </p>
<p>econ is offered as a senior class only :( and I'm actually NOT taking it over summer but during senior year...
i like stanford because it's a 15 minute drive and I want to stay close but I know my chances of going away are much higher... </p>
<p>MIT is mainly because in my math/science classes, I have always performed better than my friends who HAVE won awards and national recognition.. obviously I didn't do so well in the competitions..</p>
<p>as for chicago and columbia, my grades in lit/history have improved and next year i'm taking euro which I know I will do well in because I actually care about history other than that of the U.S... </p>
<p>I also LOVE columbia's 3-2 5-year plan where i got to columbia college for 3 years and then go to engineering for 2 years so it's BA/BS done and i retain my interest in math and humanities/liberal arts :)</p>
<p>sadly, my GPA isn't even as high as I said.. my W should be 4.3 and my UW is 3.88 :'(</p>
<p>is there anything you guys thing I could improve on from now until January?</p>