GPA : 3.88 UW, 4.32 W
SAT : 1550
SAT Math II : 770
Hooks : URM, Primary Legacy(Father went during undergraduate)
ECs:
Forensics Speech and Debate (3 years)
HOSA (2 years)
Math Honor Society(2 years)
Started the coding club at my school (2 years)
Volunteered at the public library (2 years)
Volunteered at a Syrian refugee camp(1 summer)
Internship with the Vice President of a local PNC branch(3 years)
Internship with a financial consultant (3 years)
Internship with a UN Public Health officer(2 years)
Internship with an AT&T Sales Manager
I’m fairly confident that my essays will be above average, as I enjoy writing and feel like I could make a good piece. My LORs would most likely be subpar as I attend a large school where the teachers are inundated with requests.
What do you guys think? Any suggestions on where to improve? My extracurriculars are on the mediocre side, and my grades are above average but not excellent, so I’m feeling like leaning on my URM/Legacy status a little too much.
@nomoreinterviews agree your ECs are mediocre, perhaps your essays will make the one summer in Syria shine? If well written (e.g. not the standard / cliche “1st world kid learns from / has his eyes open by the 3rd world encounter”) it might help differentiate your application.
to chance you (agree with @Boobyhatch that you shouldn’t listen to strangers too much) I’d want to hear about your courses and their rigor, including what you will take senior year.
You’re certainly a competitive applicant. Your URM/legacy status will definitely both help, although you shouldn’t lean on those, as you said before. I think you’re stats are fine - not the best, but probably around/above average. See if you can take a couple more SAT 2s and get above a 750 on each - a lot of my classmates at Princeton took submitted 3 SAT 2 scores. Your ECs are certainly more widespread than mine were, which is a good thing, although I think adcoms might question how comprehensive your internships were - you had so many over so few years that you can’t possible have done much meaningful work for more than one of them each year. I wouldn’t worry about that too much, though, since adcoms know most high school internships aren’t very deep.
My advice would be to try to get close to the teachers you plan on asking for LORs this coming fall, in the 2 months before Princeton’s EA deadline (assuming you’re applying early). If those teachers were from your junior year, go visit them, ask them if they need help with grading or running labs or whatever. If those teachers are going to be from your senior year, do your best in their classes, visit them after school, ask questions, basically do whatever you can to demonstrate interest in the classes they teach.