Realistic Projections?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Asian-American male (immigrant)</p>

<p>First in my family to attend college</p>

<p>GPA: 4.00/4.67; Ranked 1 out of 452</p>

<p>Extremely rigorous courses:
Freshman: All honors with the exception of Spanish2
Sophomore: All honors with the exception of Spanish3 and AP Euro
Junior: All AP courses</p>

<p>Senior Year Courses:
AP Comp Sci A
AP Calculus BC
Honors Physics
AP Literature
Journalism
Speech/Debate</p>

<p>AP Euro - 5, AP Calc AB - 5, AP Bio - 5, AP Stats - 4, AP USHistory - 5</p>

<p>==</p>

<p>SAT's:
Took them once - 2380
R: 800
M: 780
W: 800 (essay: 11)</p>

<p>SAT II's:
Biology: 780
USHistory: 800
Math Level2: 780</p>

<p>==</p>

<p>Essays:
Common App - I'd say its a pretty good essay, talks about my time in speech and how I overcame personal lack of confidence to get pretty good at it. Blah blah blah.
I'm a fairly proficient writer, so I think my essays, if not totally cliche, are pieced together well enough to communicate it. Plus my topics were pretty offbeat, I talked about my childhood ambitions to rule the world.</p>

<p>Letters of Recs:
1) AP Lit Teacher: Had her in ninth grade and again this year. Knows me really well and loves me, this is going to be a really good letter.
2) AP Bio Teacher: Had him in ninth grade and junior year. He's an oddball. He let me take a look at a draft of his letter and it was extremely short/cliche. He thinks highly of me as a student, but letters are just not his thing, probably a weak letter or mediocre one at best.
3) My counselor knows me pretty well and is probably going to write a strong letter for me.</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
No leadership positions (ouch, this hurts) except for my Speech team, where I wasn't even a captain but just an event leader.</p>

<p>But as for my accomplishments in speech:
League Champion
State finalist for two years (5th and 7th places for junior and sophomore years, respectively)
National quarterfinalist - 23rd place
District Champion
Berkeley Invitational finalist (pretty prestigious tournament)</p>

<p>Mock Trial was another activity, took a fair amount of time the first few months of every year.</p>

<p>Four year golfer (probably not going to be varsity though, so this hurts too) but scholar athlete all four years. I chose a pretty competitive sport at our school, and I'm also not very good.</p>

<p>I won the school science fair my freshman year and was a runner up in the LA County Fair that same year.</p>

<p>Opinions page editor of the school newspaper this year.</p>

<p>Student member of my district school board this year.</p>

<p>NHS this year</p>

<p>CSF this year</p>

<p>National Merit Finalist Candidate</p>

<p>I was also nominated for the Bank of America scholarship in Math/Science.</p>

<p>As for volunteer work, I was on and off in a couple of service clubs throughout my four years, so that wasn't that impressive. But the bulk of my community service came through volunteering at a local botanical garden/research facility. It took a fair amount of time every year and I have close to 170 hours. I also was a counselor in their summer day camp program for three years.</p>

<p>==</p>

<p>Colleges</p>

<p>Stanford - my top choice as of the moment
USC - my other top choice, if it came down to the two, I'd go with who gives the better scholarship
Pomona College
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
CalTech
Princeton
UCLA
UCBerkeley
UCIrvine - ELC guaranteed
UCSD - Viewing this as a safety</p>

<p>Any predictions?</p>

2

<p>okay, $c will prob give you a full ride...I think you're fully capable of getting into stanford, and recommend that you go if you get any kind of aid (you would be an absolute godsend @ USC)</p>

3

<p>SC is that high on my list because of the generosity they have with their financial aid, otherwise I really am aiming for Stanford at this point. Stanford is really unpredictable though, no?</p>

4

<p>yes, stanford is VERY unpredictable. i say UCI and UCSD are ur safety schools, and theres a good chance youll get into stanford. whats ur major???</p>

5

<p>I'd say in at all. Stanford is a bit random at times, but you should be good (maybe 70% in?)</p>

6

<p>So what are my chances at the majority of these? (Match, reach, etc.) Thanks a lot guys, I really appreciate this.</p>

7

<p>you're in at all the UC's.</p>

<p>all the rest other than princeton, stanford, and harvard are matches? the other ones are so unpredictable :( but you have a farily good shot at those too. lacking a little leadership :/</p>

8

<p>bump. i appreciate the responses, guys.</p>

9

<p>jeeeesus good stats</p>

10

<p>Those are REALLY good stats, and while you don't have the ECs that some of the other guys on here, your GPA and test scores sorta override that. And it's not like you don't have any extra curriculars....</p>

<p>Good chances at all of them.</p>

11

<p>Berkeley: match - safe match (but Cal can be really random in admissions)
UCLA: safe match
UCSD: safety
UCI: safety
USC: safety</p>

<p>You're probably going to get into most of the others.</p>

12

<p>lemme put it this way: ur GPA rocked mine by about 0.3-0.4 and u outdid my SAT score by about 100, even though i had some very unique and interesting ECs. i got into UCLA (currently attending), Cal, Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Princeton, ucsd, georgetown, and some others....... (maybe i got lucky, who knows........)</p>

<p>you beat me in virtually every aspect, i say YOU HAVE A DAMN GOOD SHOT AT ANYWHERE YOU APPLY TO</p>