<p>freshman- nearly all honors classes, with A's as the final grade for all classes
sophomore- AP chem (5), APUSH part 1, A's as the final grade for all classes again
junior year (current unweighted grades, which exclude 4th quarter and final):
english H- 91 right now
AP econ- 96
AP calc ab-97
AP bio- 96
AP stat-97
french V H- 98
my gpa is like 99 weighted (+5 for honors and AP courses)
SAT- 2290 (one sitting, retaking in two days although I barely studied so i might cancel)
800 on chem
800 math II
790 bio
670 french
237 on PSAT
I am pretty sure I got a 5 on stat, calc, and bio, but I could get as low as a 3 on both macro and micro (econ was the day after stat and I spent all my time studying for stat)</p>
<p>EC's:
math club
nhs
piano 10 years but no distinction
state champion in science olympiad (1st place in remote sensing and like 13th in protein modeling)
Fencing: team captain, 4 years on varsity, 40th in my age group in the US, 1st team all state, I spend many hours a week on this and do many tournaments, including nationals. </p>
<p>senior year schedule:
general or organic chemistry at princeton
AP french
AP lit
AP calc bc
AP physics c
us history II (not AP)</p>
<p>summer plans: get a lot of volunteer hours, cuz I have like 25 right now... </p>
<p>legacy preference for princeton and MIT (my mom went to MIT as undergrad and princeton as grad).
state-nj
school- relatively good public school
race- asian/white (but I will put down white on the application)
income- >200k
recommendations- this unfortunately will be the weak point of my application, as I have never developed particularly good bonds with any of my teachers. I work hard in all my classes and am well behaved but (I guess because I always seem sad/depressed and am not very involved) my teachers seem to ignore me for the most part. </p>
<p>one last thing- besides giving telling me my chances, could you guys please please suggest things I can improve on and do over the summer. I know I could do better, so any advice would be greatly appreciated. thank you!</p>
<p>AP Chem as a Sophomore? Nice. Just talk with teachers that teach your favorite subjects. Try to catch them outside of class, after school, etc, and strike up conversations about whatever. I talk with a lot of my teachers about everything from the next predicted doomsday to goings on in the stock market.</p>
<p>Oh, and with legacy, grades, and that state champ thingy, why even ask for a chance? I think you’re in. :)</p>
<p>Why do you want to give SAT again? After 2290 in one sitting?
After scoring as high as 2290 SAT won’t make or break you at MIT or Princeton
Focus in your ECs and essays and try doing something interesting in summer an internship or two may be or open up your Fencing Club
Legacy status would help a lot</p>
<p>Thanks guys! I love chem which is why I want to take orgo next year. Unfortunately my chem teacher doesn’t really speak english well and is lazy (which makes him an awesome teacher but bad person for recs). I am planning to do a short internship this summer at a pathology clinic, so hopefully that might help. I’m retaking the SAT because I know that I can improve my critical reading score, so it would at least help my superscore. I was surprised by the optimism though, because a lot of kids in my school have better SAT, grades, and volunteering, and do more clubs with more leadership positions. I’m always surprised by how few ivy leagues our school turns out (only 3-4 this year). Fencing and chem are really my hook. </p>
<p>oh btw I participated in chem league in 10th grade and biology league in 11th grade. (i was sooo close to getting the award plaque for chem )</p>
<p>Your a great student, and ur test scores are fine. I think you should just do what you love and focus on ECs for now, the numbers game is up and all that really matters are the more subjective parts of your application. </p>
<p>And i really understand what you mean by your teachers don’t pay much attention to you - i do very well in all my classes but i’m just not very talkative. I tend to only talk to my teachers if i need help on something (which usually happens to be something more difficult than schoolwork). But i’m sure your recs will be great regardless, your teachers probably appreciate your hard work and determination.</p>
<p>It’s a bit late to try to change things about your application now that it’s summer. Your best bet would be to really focus on your Common App essay (I believe the prompts can be found somewhere on their website) and make it as spectacular as possible. There’s a ton of posts related to essay help on this website; check them out!</p>
<p>Also, is Wharton really your top choice? If not, don’t apply ED to it. You strike me as a science person; I recommend that you look at Penn’s Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology. It’s a dual-degree program between Wharton and Penn’s engineering school, and it’s really fantastic. What’s great about it is that you can, with no extra effort, apply only to Wharton in case you’re deferred or rejected by Jerome Fisher.</p>
<p>state champion in science olympiad (1st place in remote sensing and like 13th in protein modeling) - </p>
<p>Can you please elaborate more on this. what science olympiad is this? Scioly or something international? Was it a group event? In which grade were you the state champion - high school or middle school?</p>
<p>it is scioly, and I did both events this year with one partner. And I guess the thing with the recs is, I simply never seem involved in class (I get as much sleep as my friends but I am always so much more tired). </p>
<p>I love UPenn because it has a great fencing team (several of my fencing friends are going there next year). I would love to get into Wharton and have a career as either an investment banker or be involved with the business side of science startup companies. If I don’t get into Wharton then I may want to pursue some combination of chemistry and business or chemistry and law (like patent attorney or something). Bottom line is, although I am not set on a career, I would love to go to any of those three schools. oh yeah, or columbia, where my grandfather went (I guess that’s another legacy :))</p>
<p>i took AP Chem as a sophomore as well. Now a junior, i’m taking Organic Chem. I don’t know about you, but to me, these two classes were completely different from eachother. I kinda struggled in Chem (bad teacher, and i had never been exposed to the subject before), but i actually found organic much easier and more fun lol. Of course, my grade dropped a little because i’m lazy…but all in all, i guess orgo requires more of your artistic/imaginitive side so if you’re that kind of person you might find it easy =). And I’m also considering Penn…if i get in, i will probably end up going for Biochem or something.</p>
<p>but ANYWAY lol, you loook great for UPenn. i don’t know about MIT or Princeton…but then again, no one ever does.</p>
<p>As I mentioned in my previous post, the Jerome Fisher Program would allow you to pursue business and engineering while still applying to just Wharton. You could do chemical engineering and business. A good number of Fisher graduates choose to pursue finances, and they’re generally recruited above Wharton-only kids.</p>
<p>Just something to consider. There’s no risk in applying. (:</p>
<p>well I don’t want to do any engineering; if I pursued chemistry it would be more pure chemistry, not applied. I guess I could consider that Vagelos program, although my Penn15 friends all call it “vag”, which slightly perturbs me. Also, I want to get the boost of ED’ing to Wharton, and I suspect that if I apply to vag and get rejected, then I will end up in the Wharton RD pool.</p>
<p>You can mark your secondary application to Wharton as ED. I’m not sure if the Vagelos LSM program lets you major in chemistry. It says that students major in a life science. I didn’t realize that you wanted to do pure chemistry. Fisher obviously wouldn’t be right for you then.</p>
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