I’m currently terrified of my chances of getting into college, I have always been an ambition student and reached for competitive schools (ivy leagues, UCs, MIT, etc) but I’m starting to lose hope and give up. I want an honest opinion on my chances and what I can do to appeal myself to colleges.
Residence: California, US
(Permanent resident with green card)
Grades:
Freshman year – all A’s
- honor Biology
- English
- World History
- Algebra 2 Honors
- French 1
- Concert band
- Marching band
Sophomore year – all A’s except first semester Calc BC, B
- AP Calc BC
- AP World History
- Honors English
- regular Chemistry
- French 2
- concert band
- marching band
Junior year – all A’s
- AP Physics 1
- AP Stats
- APUSH
- AP Lit
- AP French
- concert band
- marching band
Classes signed up for senior year
- AP Gov
- AP Physics 2
- AP Lang
- AP Bio
- concert band
- marching band
AP exam scores:
- AP Calc BC : 5
- AP Physics 1, AP World, APUSH, AP Lit, AP Stats : 4
SAT:
1510, 720 English and 790 Math (also took the June SAT but as many people heard my score got ~rigged~ and dropped a lot despite getting significant amount of more questions correct)
– currently considering taking ACT in September
SAT Subject:
- Math II: 790
- planning to take physics
Extra Curriculars:
- marching band for 4 years
- concert band for 4 years
- percussion ensemble, Music For All Indianapolis, Fresno State Percussion Festival
- section leader in band
- mentor in band
- writing tutor
- Science Olympiad
- Math club
- piano for 11 years
- annual Benefit Concert
- NHS
Awards?
- honors award at school
- Le Grand Concours awards
- Certificate of Merit Level 10
I accidentally posted before I finished but I also founded a non profit organization with a group of students
Work experience:
- Patient information assistant (help organize patient information into computer, etc)
- writing tutor
You are a competitive applicant. Your stats and ECs are good. Write great essays, apply early somewhere, and you could get accepted to any of these schools
@doorrealthe i’m just not sure if my extracurriculars will be enough, because i’m looking to go into applied maths
Join math related ECs then. Join the math team, start a math club, take some online math courses, etc. Do anything you can to show your passion for math
No math senior year? Are you taking a college math course if you ran out of courses at the high school? The sneior year load looks a bit light unless you’re taking some college courses.
It’s hard to know how colleges with such a low admissions rate will react to any one application, but please consider getting help proofreading your entire app as well as the essays. It’s the internet and a casual post, so might not be indicative of your writing skill but your first paragraph contains two large, jarring instances of poor grammar and there are smaller issues throughout the post. You do not want to have grammar mistakes on your app or give them concern that you will struggle with English.
@milee30 I wrote the post with my phone so I did not check through that first paragraph, but thank you for your advice 
@momprof9904 I forgot to include that, but I am considering taking linear algebra senior year at a local community college
"I wrote the post with my phone "
Trust me, I do the same thing and completely understand how difficult it is. No worries at all for a message board. Glad you understood it was meant as helpful advice and not a cut. Good luck.
Remember that the Ivies and MIT are reaches for virtually everyone. Even applicants with perfect stats are rejected.
I am a math professor and so am somewhat familiar with what places like the Ivies and MIT look for in their future math majors - you will be competing with applicants who have won top tier math competitions and/or other equivalent honors (e.g. independent research and finalists at ISEF etc.) I don’t see any math EC’s of that level in your post. And just advancing to Calc BC in your sophomore year isn’t going to impress the tippy-top universities. A lot of students accelerate in math that way. And you are also in a competitive demographic (Asian- American?)
I would treat these top universities as reaches and plan accordingly. UCB and UCLA have excellent math departments, but I hear that admissions there too are highly competitive. Cast a wider net - you are a very good student with very good stats , but the reality is that the very top universities have a huge surplus of such applicants.
For UCs, calculate your GPA as shown here: https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
For 2017, these were the admission rates by GPA as recalculated in the above method. However, some divisions or majors (e.g. commonly CS or engineering) were more selective than the overall for the campus. Math is less likely to be filled to capacity to the point of being a more competitive major.
Campus 4.20- 3.80- 3.40- 3.00-
higher 4.19 3.79 3.39
UCB 43% 13% 2% 1%
UCLA 47% 12% 2% 1%
UCSD 84% 39% 7% 1%
UCSB 82% 45% 10% 1%
UCI 94% 52% 11% 3%
UCD 90% 56% 17% 4%
UCSC 93% 76% 44% 14%
UCR 98% 90% 63% 23%
UCM 98% 96% 89% 57%
Ivy League schools should always be considered a reach, particularly if you lack any of the favored attributes like recruited athlete or legacy. MIT also (but does not consider legacy, so that may be better for you than the Ivy League schools, assuming no legacy at any of them).
You are a competitive applicant, but high stats does not guarantee admissions.
hey everyone, just wanted to update that I’ve decided to attend UC Berkeley; I got accepted into Boston College, UCSD, UCLA, UCB, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, WashU, and Duke.
@chunji1936 - congratulations and thanks for coming back and updating us. Just curious - is for Math major or CS (am not even sure if Berkeley accepts into a major or college) - any relevant details will be great. Congrats again.
Well done! What are you majoring in?
It depends on which college the student gets accepted into; I got accepted into L&S which accepts all students as undeclared, and I’m planning on majoring in Applied Mathematics.