<p>Currently a junior, race second-generation Hispanic (dad is Salvadorian, mom is Mexican)
Location: Germantown, Tennessee (suburb of Memphis)
GPA: unweighted 3.34, weighted 3.7 something (sorry forgot lol). My school uses a very tough grading system where 93-100 is an A and 85-92 is a B. I also go to one of the top 5 public schools in Tennessee.
Class Rank: 186/566
Avg. Grade: 91.09
Honors I've Taken: Honors Geometry, Honors English, Honors Biology, Honors Chemistry, Honors Spanish III, Honors Algebra II
Honors Currently Taking: Honors Pre-Calculus, Honors Spanish IV
APs I'm Taking: AP Chem, AP Bio
Next Year's Honors/AP: AP Calc BC, Ap Physics C: Mech, AP Statistics
my grades have definitely improved a LOT since freshman/sophmore year. 1st semester this year got all As and 1 B.
SAT: 800-M/640-R (yuck)/740-W (10 on essay)
ACT: 30 overall :/
PSAT: 206 overall
EC: Member of Model United Nations, member of 30+ Club, member of the high school bowling team. I have been bowling since 2000 and have won numerous citywide and statewide competitions and also a scholarship. I also play tennis and raquetball recreationally. I'm planning to get a lot of service hours this summer once I'm done studying for my AP exams, and also I'm going to 2 engineering-related summer camps.
Other: 2nd statewide in the National Spanish Exam, 2007
Intended Major: Materials Science/Enginnering or Chemical Engineering. I'm very interested in nanotechnology.</p>
<p>Now for the fun part, school's I'm thinking of applying to!</p>
<p>University of Tennessee - Knoxville
Virginia Tech
Georgia Tech
Purdue
U Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
Texas A&M
UT Austin
UC Berkeley (dare to dream lol)</p>
<p>University of Tennessee - Knoxville - Safety
Virginia Tech - Match
Georgia Tech - Match
Purdue - Low Match/Match
U Illinois - Urbana-Champaign - High Match (Out of State)
Texas A&M - Low Match
UT Austin - High Match (Out of State)
UC Berkeley (dare to dream lol) - High Match/Low Reach (Out of State)</p>
<p>With a 91 GPA, a 1440 (R+M) SAT, and URM status (Hispanic), you may want to go for broke and add MIT, Cornell, or Princeton to your list. Not all of them, just one, as your big reach. Also, you may want to consider Carnegie Mellon.</p>
<p>Thanks for your reply...darn those out of state schools :(. A couple questions though: if I take the SAT again but do better on the reading but do not as well on the math or writing, will colleges pick and choose which sections to take from which sitting? Or is the score they use all from 1 test date?</p>
<p>Also I have been looking at Carnegie Mellon, but 2 of my friends and a few relatives have been there and none of them liked it... I might apply though, why not :P. The main ones I've been looking at are GTech and VTech...both UT Austin and A&M are GIGANTIC schools so I'm still not so sure about them. Anyone been there?</p>
<p>If you take the SATs more than once, most schools will use the highest score you get on each section from among your sittings. For example, if you get a 640 on the reading in your May 3rd sitting, and a 710 on the reading in your October 10th sitting, most schools will use the 710 when assessing your test scores. Essentially, they combine the highest scores from each sitting.</p>
<p>And yeah, being from out of state can make it much more difficult to get into competitive and desirable state schools.</p>
<p>Anyone else have any opinions on what my chances are?</p>
<p>By the way, I just got the letter in the mail that says I'm a national merit commended student (I know I'm not a semifinalist because my score is too low though...). Most likely I'm a national hispanic scholar as well.</p>
<p>oh sorry if I hurt you fin101. I was just upset with all those people who keep on posting chances. I am not familiar with the American system so I would not be able to chance you. Instead I made a stupid joke. sorry again</p>
<p>I think you should attempt to raise your standarized test scores a bit higher but I only say that because I want you to aim for higher schools- given that you can put hispanic, come from a tough public school, and you are in tenessea( a wierd/rare location), you have a shot at some upper tier schools. I'm not saying you'll get in but shoot for Cornell or Dartmouth, etc. I also think Berkeley is out of reach; my experience with Berkeley is that it is an academic school- meaning that while things like EC's definitely factor in, stellar grades and test scores seal the deal and get you in. With your GPA and medicore test scores, I really don't think Berkeley is an appropriate reach. I definitely think you can get into an Ivy but Berkeley is too concentrated on getting in academically qualified candidates and Calfornia, with all our asians, top high schools, and large breadth, is just a breeding ground for Berkeley applicants. Also, as an out of state, your chances are already significantly lower and Berkeley really does not care as much for "hooks" like being a URM or legacies ,etc. Your profile is much more suited to other top tier schools but not Berkeley, I think. This is just from the dynamics of the schools.</p>
<p>Thanks for your post. I didn't really know all that about UC Berkeley (except that the students are mostly from California) but I might rethink my reach...to be honest I am really not that interested in going to an ivy league. If anything, I want my reach to be something like Stanford, MIT, or Caltech, though I have less than a snowballs chance at those haha.</p>
<p>Also, I just received the letter in the mail saying that I am a Natl Commended Student and Natl Hispanic Scholar. I am also pretty sure I am going to get straight A's this semester, hopefully that will raise my GPA to 3.4 something.</p>
<p>Whether or not you should be shooting high, given your GPA, depends on whether you have overcome any challenges. Will you be applying for financial aid? Do your parents live in a fancy zip code? Did your parents go to college and where? Also, what exactly do you mean by regional competitive sports?</p>