<p>I think you’re taking the wrong approach…(this is obvious, but) there is nothing wrong with being an asian really strong in math/science…lol, what’s wrong with that? You like math/science, you’re asian…um, that’s cool.</p>
<p>Trying to change it or something is pretty silly, just write good essays and convey your personality and etc…who cares if you’re strong in math/science and you’re asian.</p>
<p>I addressed some of this in your other thread. The sports would be a good thing to emphasize along with your math pedigree, especially for Yale and Caltech.</p>
<p>I’m in the same boat my man. Good at math/science, asian, but I do play two sports at varsity level and I play tennis regularly with a club. I also volunteer a lot. </p>
<p>I’m going to thoroughly use my essays to distinguish myself. It’s important to show that you have potential; don’t talk about how you can use the university to make yourself better, but rather how you can make the university better. That, imo, is the key to a successful college application. Best of luck in 2010; hope we both get into MIT or Harvard =]</p>
<p>tomjones, i really dont like how you put down the ucs like that. the ucs are an excellent institution. and ive known people who turn down hypsm schools for berkeley, ucla, and other ucs. just work hard on your app and youll land where you land. but theres no reason to obsess over it.</p>
<p>and this applies especially to you since youre going to ssp, so id assume that you’re a math/sci/engineering kinda guy. in that situation, i dont know why you wouldnt be happy going to somewhere like berkeley CoE. if you dont like california, then fine, thats your deal, but dont look down on schools for ridiculous reasons.</p>
<p>Of course the UC’s are excellent institutions. I’m not “putting them down.” And give me names. Of people who turned down HYPSM for UC’s (for reasons other than financial problems).
Anyways, I’d much rather go to HYPSM instead of UCLA or Cal (I hope you agree with that). Also, I’m already living in California. I’d much rather get more experiences and go somewhere far far away, than stay in Cali and go to some school with 30K people (which is also the total population of my town).
It may seem like I’m obsessing over this whole college admissions process. But why else are we on College Confidential? I just want to know more about the whole process. And plus, I’m bored (trust me, I am a very different person on College confidential than I am in real life =p)
Yet another reason why I don’t want to go to Berkeley, is simply the fact that EVERYONE from my school goes there. Well not everyone. But, about 10-20 of the top 50 go to Cal every year. Another 10-15 go to UCLA. So basically, the top students of each class (GPA/class rank-wise) go on to either Cal or UCLA. It just doesn’t distinguish them. I’d much rather go to a smaller liberal arts school such as Pomona. But that’s just me, I’m more into smaller, tightly-knit schools. I also wouldn’t mind going to a research university. </p>
<p>So I think you are going to Socorro? Good luck, and have fun there =]</p>
<p>lol? names? there are plenty of people. heck, my school valedictorian chose berkeley over princeton this year (doing engineering). and i know of someone at ucla whos chose it over yale just to stay close to home. it happens more often than you would think.</p>
<p>i apologize if i came off as a bit rough. however, i do think that saying that going to a UC means that you “fail” is indeed putting the whole uc system down. do realize how lucky we are to have a state flagship engineering school that literally owns. would i take hypsm over berkeley? maybe, maybe not, but more likely than not. it someone wasnt doing engineering, then honestly i wouldnt know why someone would choose berkeley or ucla over hypsm unless they just want to stay close to home. but for engineering though, i can see many people taking berkeley over all of hypsm (sort of depending on department).</p>
<p>keeping in touch with the purpose of the thread though, i am, however, in the same situation as you. my school and local area suck a little more, but its relatively the same. but honestly, what do you think you could do between now and the end of year to improve your chances that much? just do a good app and write really good essays. something that i think is underemphasized are recs. i think that recs honestly help play your advocate more than anything else as long as it is a legitimately good rec (not just one that recommends you, but one that absolutely exalts you). will we all get in? no. but we can try as hard as we can and just hope for the best.</p>
<p>i would suggest that you start looking at other schools obviously if you havent already like lacs and other top unis that have good math/sci/engineering departments. theres a lot out there.</p>
<p>yeah im going to socorro. leaving on thursday :D. have fun at ojai :P</p>
<p>Sweet. I’m leaving next Sunday. It’s gonna be a blast! Yea, I will definitely try as hard as I can, and hope for the best. Hopefully, SSP will help =] Or at least, inspire me to do research in the fall, etc.
The thing is, I actually have no idea what I want to do in college. Engineering? Math? Physics, biology? </p>
<p>Hmm recommendations. I was just thinking about what teachers I am going to get recs from…But what my teachers write is beyond my control. I want to try to improve what I CAN control. Essays, application, continue doing ec’s, sports, etc. I guess all we need to do now is work hard on our apps in the summer and fall, and hope for the best. Now that I think about it, I’ll prolly just write honestly and passionately about my interests, instead of trying to seem different from the typical math/science Asian. I’m hoping that I’ll hear some good news from top tier colleges, but who knows.</p>
<p>with your recs though, see how involved your teachers will let you be in writing them. at my schools, teachers do let students see the recs and make suggestions. sometimes, students can give teachers lists of things that happened or character traits that they would specifically like the teacher to touch up upon, making the rec more tailored to what the student would have the teacher put in it.</p>
<p>its an interesting thing though. hope it works out for us.</p>
<p>personally, i didn’t want to go to a UC. i guess it showed in my application, cuz i didn’t get into UCB. </p>
<p>can’t stress the importance of the essays enough. they don’t need to be phenomenal or extraordinary, but they do need to be above average. prove that you can write a solid essay that describes yourself and your passions.</p>
<p>Yea, that’s the deal here too. Though I don’t trust my teachers enough to check “top 1%” instead of “top 10%” or “top 20%” etc.</p>
<p>schee: Yea, I don’t think UC’s even read your essay though if your stats are fine. I know a guy who completely bs’ed his essay in a few hours and sent it in, cause he knew he would get into Cal based solely on his test scores.</p>
<p>my stats were fine. it’s either my essays or my ethnicity that killed my app, and i like to give people the benefit of the doubt.</p>
<p>hmm. but tomjones, i honestly dont think the check boxes mean much. and i dont know what kind of school you go to, so i dont know what a top 10 would make you look like relatively (so i dont know how much you would fear that).</p>
<p>but if you’ve developed your relationship with teachers enough, some will give you the benefit of the doubt and mark boxes in your favor. and at the same time, i think the letter that they write will trivialize all of the boxes.</p>
<p>yeah, and for uc essays, one of my friend is a horrendous writer and he got into berkeley. i think that for in state is not that hard to get into letters and science, but its fairly difficult to get into engineering (excuse my potential ignorance but i think when you apply the applicatoin process is different for the two schools).</p>
<p>yea, my smart friend got rejected from cal after applying to engineering, but the others applied to arts and sciences with subpar scores/ec’s and got in.</p>
<p>but yea, for my recs im getting: a college professor, and someone else. either physics prof (some really old short-tempered guy who prolly doesnt know how to work an online application, and he doesnt really like me- though he did let me write my own rec, which prolly helped me get into ssp), or a nice, humble woman (not a professor) who prob wouldnt let me write my own rec, but would prolly transfer info from a resume into the application. decisions decisions…</p>
<p>yeah i think the most annoying are trying to get them frommath and sci teachers, especially when they dont know how to write very well haha. honestly i think its too hard to figure out whatll get you into a hypsm. and iono, i guess we could have stellar apps and obviously still not get in.</p>
<p>you notice that of last years ssp people a lot of people who didnt get into a hypsm were asian guys (and there were a lot, and though some did though).</p>
<p>I’m surprised nobody mentioned affirmative action. There’s a word for it, you know.</p>
<p>yea! I was looking at ssp '08 and where they went to college…I’m surprised not that many got into HYPS (though a lot got into mit and caltech). and those who did get in to hyps weren’t asian…except for a select few that came from ivy-feeder schools and/or had special talents, such as being nationally ranked in something,
gah</p>
<p>whatever.</p>
<p>like to be honest, ive never cared THAT much anyways. mainly cuz i want to go to an engineering field that berkeley owns at anyways.</p>
<p>but i suppose you have to get mad at affirmative action here and there anyways. and its annoying that people associate intelligence with getting into good colleges.</p>
<p>but whatever. its not our job to judge the system but to work within it to do our best.</p>
<p>The key is to apply to many colleges, and then let luck do the rest.</p>
<p>interview.</p>
<p>Here’s my take on college admission to the Ivies and Super Top colleges.</p>
<p>The Ivy and Super Top College Preferred Groups (in order of preference).