<p>Hi guys, I was wondering if you could chance me based off of this:
(I'm an asian guy who is a junior right now)</p>
<p>Gender: F
School: very small christian school. there's only 20 students per each grade.
State: ID</p>
<p>GPA:</p>
<p>10th 1st semester: 3.7 UW
10th 2nd semester: 4.0 UW
11th 1st semester: 4.0 UW
11th 2nd semester: Not yet
(there's no weighted grade in my school since there's no ap classes...haha)</p>
<p>Overall: 3.9UW</p>
<p>10th - in my previous school and my current school, they don't have any honor or ap classes.
11th - taking 3 ap calsses right now(bio, chem, cal bc)
(I couldn't take any ap classes before than 11th because I was in India... so I was in very hard circumstances...)</p>
<p>ACT: 27 (I didn't get good score but I will try to get it soon.. hopefully :) )
SAT2: Didn't take them yet but I'm planning to take math2c on january.</p>
<p>ECs:</p>
<p>-internship at medical research center
-internship at IVI (international vaccine institute)
-Math team creator&president. my team got 1st in regional competition and 4th in state competition
-member of Scholatic(??) bowl team and my school tem got 3rd in regional and 3rd in state.
-I was class representative & in social committe in 10th grade and I'm treasure right now.
-I was in science gifted class for one year and got 3rd prize for my small paper
-joined bio youth camp, science gifted camp, bio workshop and i got 2nd prize in my group in bio workshop.
-went to volunteer trip in India for a week and did volunteer work in orphange in India
(I was able to do this because my previous school was in India :) )
-Doing Lacrosse since 10th grade. Lacrosse is the best sport I've ever experienced haha.</p>
<p>comment: I know I'm just a junior right now but I am desperate to know my chances since Caltech is my DREAM school. I am kind of worried because I don't have any remarkable hooks like other guys. Because i've seen that many guys who were admitted to Caltech were doing research activities and getting super good prizes in ISEF. haha..
And other thing is that, I was in India till 10th grade 1st semester and moved to US from 10th second semester. I hope this work well in my app. Anyway, please rate my chances.
and give me any ECs about science and math so I can try to do it.
Thanks for reading this.</p>
<p>That being said, i do feel your research internships are good, but i guess you should try and participate in research competitions and win some awards, that will really impress the committee! The middle 50% of ACT score is 33-35, so yours definitely needs improvement. Caltech is a school really focused in science, so if you have big awards (like national olympiads/international olympiads) and ECs, the committee would probably be more lenient towards your score (ex. let’s say you got a 32). Nevertheless, do aim for 36 for the math and science component of the ACT, and 800 for your subject tests as this will demonstrate your capability in math and science.</p>
<p>Here’s the thing. If you could bring up your ACT score to at least a 33, win some national academic/research awards (ex. USAMO, AIME, Siemens), write good essays, you would stand an excellent chance. As of now, i guess your chances are a bit low because of your act score and lack of awards. Good luck!</p>
<p>You will definitely get in if you are a girl with decent stats. This is the only way they can get anywhere close to 50-50 balance. Their admission web site shows mostly female students reviewing apps. </p>
<p>If you are an Asian Male then better be outstanding and unique.</p>
<p>@kyhekm I am just curious. Did the orphans in India teach you anything? Honestly, the way you put this EC doesn’t make you look good. If this one week stint in an orphanage has impacted you in a positive way and if you can explain it then it will become more meaningful. Otherwise, it comes across something you did just college admission. My apologies if this unsolicited feedback offends you.</p>
<p>I agree with Tippu about the trip to India. Why would someone go all the way to India for one week to do volunteer work? It sure looks like something for the sole purpose of padding a resume. And a skeptic would ask if you can verify that you actually did volunteer work and didn’t go there to visit relatives. It would be good to expand on that if there is more to it.</p>
<p>oh Guys, sorry about the unclear statement. I didn’t write it but I was in India for a year. For about a year, I did volunteer work in orphange near to school and my school planned some kind of field trip to go to other place and do volunteer work for a week. And I am an asian boy, Tippu. I made a mistake. Sorry about that.
I actually tried to do research thing from last semester and I was working on it and my mentor suddenly said to me that he doesn’t have time to help to perform my experiment so I’m kinda stuck right now. Anyway thank you for advices guys.</p>
<p>TippuSultan, please don’t talk about things you are not knowledgeable of. We do not practice any sort of gender-based affirmative action in admissions. You are right that we could not have a near 50-50 gender balance without AA–and we don’t. We are about 37% female right now.</p>
<p>lizzardfire, I will be happy if am wrong about AA. Again, the impression I got from one of the blogs (pictures were posted) is that most of the student readers were girls. Are you saying that I am wrong about this too?</p>
<p>I have no idea what the current composition of student readers is by gender. I know a couple of student readers, I happen to know more guys than girls that are on it. Even if there are more female than male readers, that doesn’t at all imply that the female readers are likely to give out unfair advantages to other females, and the fact that you inferred this leads me to question your objectivity. </p>
<p>You are wrong about AA. I have worked for the admissions office since my freshman year in varying capacities, and this above all things is pretty clear to me.</p>
<p>Edit: I wasn’t aware there even was a public list of student readers. Could you link us to this please? If you’re just referring to the bloggers, most of the admisisons readers are NOT bloggers. I WAS a blogger, but not an admissions reader.</p>