Science kid. Chances? Please?

<p>Here goes.</p>

<p>Asian female; junior. Goes to one of Newsweek's '06 "Public Elites"--so the school <em>is</em> rigorous.</p>

<p>Stats
GPA (no weighting) = 4.0; school doesn't rank for fear of collective student sanity
SAT I: 2290 -- 750 CR, 760 M, 780 W.
SAT II: Math II--800, Chem--800, Bio(M)--800. </p>

<p>Coursework (the important stuff):
AP Chem (expected 5)
AP Stat & AP Calc (self study, expected 5s)
IB Math HL (expected 7)**
IB Lit HL (expected 5 or 6)**
Spanish I/II/III
History courses (US/World)
20th Cent. Russian History
Biotechnology Lab (3 hr lab on Wed.--freshman/sophomore years--the joys of electrophoresis gels and pipetting)
Biology/Biochemistry
Combinatorics/Number Theory/Adv. Geometry (electives)</p>

<p>Senior Year:
AP Bio
Multivariable Calc
Senior Thesis
Spanish IV
Physics
AP Econ</p>

<p>**I know that usually people take their IBs junior-senior years. For bizarre reasons relating to the program I'm in at school, I took them soph-junior years instead (i.e. I took the May exams last month). Bizarre is the key.</p>

<p>ECs
-internship--research assistant w/a prof. in ChemEng at Pton for the past year; continuing through the summer. I won some awards at the local sci fair (project was on protein secondary structure prediction), but nothing ISEF-y or huge. I did some research before that in biotech lab, but that's not as fun xD.
piano--played for 10 yrs; performance @ honors recital at Carnegie Hall; various other random awards (local); gave lessons to a middle school kid for a few months.
volunteer work at the library--did it for two years (1 hr/wk) in the children's section, dropped it junior year, picking it back up this summer.
member of school amnesty chapter--human rights work. I helped set up an annual benefit concert, as well as other fundraisers and letter writing actions.
NHS--erm, yeah.
Spanish Honor Society--haven't actually gotten into full swing with this yet, as I was just inducted last week...
tutoring--help people with chemistry and math. It's purely volunteer work, no pay--done in school by teacher request.</p>

<p>**Is the lack of formal "leadership" ECs a big problem? </p>

<p>Colleges
This is a partial list--if you feel like there's a college that might be a good fit that's not here, say so =D. (I'm the first child in the family, and my parents have no experience w/the American college system, so...yeah. Any suggestions are quite awesome.) Oh--I'm looking into eng./compsci/math majoring and going to grad school, if that helps.
-Princeton
-Harvey Mudd
-UChicago
-Northwestern
-MIT
-Lehigh
-Lafayette
-RPI
-WPI
-BC
-Olin
-CMU
-UMaryland
-Cornell</p>

<p>Many, many thanks for your help. =)</p>

<p>since you attend any elite school, watch out for your "buddies" since most of em probably are aiming at the same schools your applying. If you don't get in, tear there necks apart.</p>

<p>-Princeton- Reach top school in nation
-Harvey Mudd-Match
-UChicago- Match, your set to go
-Northwestern-Match look above
-MIT- Reach, its like an asian country of its own
-Lehigh-saftey
-Lafayette
-RPI-Saftey
-WPI-Match
-BC
-Olin
-CMU-Match
-UMaryland-Match
-Cornell-Match</p>

<p>WPI-safety
UMd-safety
Olin-reach
BC-safe match</p>

<p>"-Princeton- Reach top school in nation"</p>

<p>..according to USNews.</p>

<p>4.0 at a top school is very impressive, you must have a great work ethic. It can't hurt to retake the SAT and go for a 2300 (i know some people will disagree with me here). you're kind of lacking in leadership...that could be your downfall when it comes to P. P and M are reaches, all other schools are within your reach. congrats on your accomplishments thus far :)</p>

<p>is there really a difference between a 2290 and a 2300?</p>

<p>Many thanks for the responses/advice! :)</p>

<p>-L.</p>

<p>No, but a 2350-2400 makes a big difference, your chances statistically go way up at the top colleges.</p>

<p>re SATs:</p>

<p>It's very likely that I won't be retaking--I took them this past Jan. and haven't picked up an SAT book since; I have other things to do this summer. (Someone ought to do a study and see if the 2350-2400 range makes a stat. sig. difference in comparison to say, 2200-2340...that would be interesting.)</p>