Rising Junior - CC Improvement advice for top schools?

<p>I’m looking personally at either UPenn Wharton or SEAS, or Fu Foundation @ Columbia (Not sure which one will be ED yet). Those are my reaches. Anyways, here is what my things are so far, please give advice :)</p>

<p>GPA:
Freshman; 3.54 (Note: Close family member fell into a coma at this time, she had raised me generally as a kid since my parents had to work a lot to make money. I felt really really bad around this time so I just thought “**** school”) (All Honors, Math and Science one year accelerated)
BAD SAT II: Biology Molecular 630</p>

<p>Sophmore: 3.8 , 3.9 w/o Art (One of 20 kids to take an AP class out of 450. One of 5 to get a 5 on exam)
SAT II: Chemistry 780</p>

<p>Junior: Hardest Possible Courseload, 2 APs, self studying 5 other APs. Honors Physics, Honors Precalc.
BAD PART: Will TEMPORARILY Drop foreign language (German 4). Taking German Regents self-study along with German Proficency exam offered by the German American Embassy, and will skip to College-level German 5 in 12th.</p>

<p>Senior: Will have a lot of AP’s. </p>

<p>**Extracurriculars<a href=“Years%20end%20at%20projected%20year%20end”>/B</a>

  1. Math League 9-12 (No leadership)</p>

<li><p>Student Goverment 9-12 (Vice President, ALso will try to become the student member of the Board of Education. Hopefully senior year president.)</p></li>
<li><p>10-12. Founded/president Volunteer group that plays music at old people’s homes. </p></li>
<li><p>Cross Country 9-12, Junior Varsity. </p></li>
<li><p>Young High School Democrats - 11-12. Will be founder/president of a club at my school next year. Running for Regional Director. Personally I believe if I get the regional director (he/she manages about 6 states) it will be a hook.</p></li>
<li><p>Movement for the US Public Service Academy - 11,12 - State Youth Council, will organize big campaigns this year@school.</p></li>
<li><p>Model UN 9-12 (Vice President, hopefully president in senior, nothing useful here. No Awards.)</p></li>
</ol>

<p>AP’s in my school I DONT plan on taking: AP Studio Art, AP Music Theory (sorry, hardest courseload my *** those ones shouldnt be AP’s) By end of senior year total will be around 7 AP Classes, with about 13 AP Tests. </p>

<p>Awards I’m Working On:</p>

<ul>
<li>Davidson’s Fellow in Philosophy </li>
<li>JFK Profile in Courage Essay Contest</li>
<li>Some other essay contests for money</li>
<li>Will take AMC in January</li>
<li>Prob will get National AP Scholar at end of Junior Year</li>
<li>Prob will get National Merit Semifinalist or Commended, mabye Finalist</li>
</ul>

<p>SATs: Practice tests projected around 2250 medium. Will take SAT II World History, Math IIC, and Physics, expecting 750+.</p>

<p>Biggest Problem: Unweighted Class Rank; Top 15% (Lots of stupid people who take the easiest courseload and get perfect scores…they disgust me BADLY. The whole top 10% is filled by these grade grubbers). This year I plan to go all out on grades to raise my rank, so I’ll prob get into the bottom half of the top 10%. No Top 5% or Val for me : (</p>

<p>I’m pointing out the bad parts of my application because I believe they are serious things that might substantially hurt me at the admission process at elite schools. Any comment on how adcoms would look personally at the negative faults in comparison to the rest would be great.</p>

<p>Any suggestions on what would make me the best possible candidate for Wharton/Fu Foundation? I’m also looking at RPI, Cornell, Duke, MIT, and some others as reach-dream schools (I already have ideas of about 6 safeties, even though its so early still. I’m ultra-ultra pessimistic). Thanks!</p>

<p>Wait, are you a senior or a junior? If you're a sophomore right now then, really, its too early, but your GPA is already not in good shape. If you're a senior and you tell the people on here what your junior year GPA is, it might make a difference. I think you're competitive with U Penn in general, but not at Wharton. Columbia and Wharton will be reaches, but that's to be expected for most everyone. Cornell, again, you might be competitive, but Duke/MIT are reaches.</p>

<p>well the 3.54 Freshman GPA is what I recalculated it negatively, as personally I'm not really sure how to effectively use the GPA scale. My general UW Avg for freshman year was 92, except I took out "Manufacturing Systems" and "Sports Marketing (a business course)" both of which i got 95's in because i thought they were fluff and it resulted in a 90, but im still not sure exactly how it works.</p>

<p>well first off
if i were you
i would retake my biology
and im pretty sure that your gpa will be fine
cuz your weighted gpa will look good with those grades</p>

<p>Hopefully colleges will take note that your schools ranks by UW GPA.</p>

<p>Hopefully, lol</p>

<p>In Junior / Senior year I plan to have a 4.0 GPA, since I've skimmed off with a 3.9 Sophmore year with paying minimal attention to school ( was still saddened by the family death) but now ive gotten over it as we buried her finally in july (long time for funeral preperations). I still truly love Columbia, so would they be ok with a ~3.6->3.9->4.0->4.0? I'm constantly worried about my abysmal freshman year, my counseler visibly expressed dissapointment w/ me at the end of my freshman year because at teh beginning she thought i was yale material o_O this year she's gotten hope back for me for a good school</p>

<p>I'm actually feeling pretty depressed about this thread now >_<</p>